WOMAN 

IN  THE 

GOLDEN 

AGES 


AMELIA 

GERE 

MASON 


UCSB    LIBRARY 


^^T^-r 


ldens 


LIBRARY 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 
SANTA  BARBARA 

PRESENTED  BY 

ERIC  SCHMIDT 


in? 


II 
la 


oaenj 


6 'entuty  (30, 


Copyright,  1901,  by 
THE  CENTURY  Co. 


Pitblished  October,  1901. 


THE  OEVINNE  PRESS. 


TO    THE 

REPRESENTATIVE    WOMEN 
OF    TO-DAY 


PREFACE 

IN  this  series  of  detached  essays  I  have  tried  to 
gather  and  group  the  most  salient  and  essential 
facts  relating  to  the  character,  position,  and  intel- 
lectual attainments  of  women  in  the  great  ages  of 

the  world.      It  is  not  an  easy  matter  to  trace  with 

~»^ 

any  exactness  the  lives  of  women  of  classic  times, 
as  they  were  largely  ignored  by  men  who  chron- 
icled events.  If  the  historians  gave  them  any  place 
at  all,  it  was  an  insignificant  one,  concerning  only 
their  relations  to  men,  and  they  were  more  inclined 
to  sing  the  praises  of  those  who  ministered  to  mas- 
culine caprices  than  of  those  distinguished  for 
any  merit  whatever.  There  were  exceptions  in  the 
cases  of  a  few  women  of  very  remarkable  gifts ; 
but  even  these  were  subject  to  the  worst  asper- 
sions, for  the  simple  reason  that  they  had  the 
courage  of  their  talents  and  convictions.  This 

vii 


PREFACE 

fashion  of  considering  women  only  as  convenient 
appendages  of  men  may  account  largely  for  the 
space  given  to  those  of  more  beauty  and  sensuous 
charm  than  decorum — a  fact  which  has  doubtless 
misled  after-ages.  It  accounts  also  for  the  reckless 
flings  of  satirists  and  comedians,  who  were  even  less 
to  be  trusted  in  early  times  than  they  are  to-day. 
Truth  compels  me  to  recall  more  or  less  the  con- 
temptuous attitude  of  men,  as  it  was  too  large  a 
factor  in  determining  the  position  of  women  to  be 
omitted.  But  in  no  case  has  it  been  exaggerated, 
or  set  down  in  a  spirit  of  antagonism. 

The  most  striking  points  in  the  lives  of  world- 
famous  women  are  sufficiently  familiar.  True  or 
false,  they  are  often  quoted  in  proof  of  one  theory 
or  another.  But  a  few  isolated  facts  gathered  at 
random  count  for  little.  It  is  only  in  the  grouping 
of  many  facts  of  many  ages  that  the  real  quality 
of  the  old  types  of  womanhood  can  be  clearly  dis- 
cerned. One  is  constantly  confronted,  however,  with 
discrepancies  in  the  records.  This  may  be  readily 
understood  when  we  consider  the  impossibility  of 
getting  a  correct  version  of  things  that  happen  next 
door  to  us.  Reports  of  events  and  estimates  of 
character  are  about  as  various  as  the  people  who 

viii 


PREFACE 

offer  them.  One  can  only  accept  those  which  have 
the  most  inherent  probability,  or  are  given  by  the 
chronicler  who  has  the  best  reputation  for  veracity. 
So  far  as  possible,  I  have  relied  upon  contemporary 
writers  for  the  facts  of  their  own  age;  but  I  am 
also  indebted  largely  to  the  research  of  the  great 
modern  historians.  In  the  few  classic  or  Italian 
translations,  I  have  usually  availed  myself  of  those 
nearest  at  hand,  if  they  had  the  stamp  of  authority, 
though  they  might  not  always  be  the  latest,  per- 
haps not  even  the  best. 

These  essays  are  limited  mainly  to  the  golden 
ages  of  Greece,  Rome,  and  the  Renaissance,  with  a 
brief  interlude  that  serves  as  a  transition  from  pagan 
to  medieval  times.  The  mantle  of  the  great  Italians 
fell  upon  the  women  of  the  golden  age  of  France, 
who  reached  the  summit  of  the  power  and  influence 
of  their  sex  in  the  past.  The  personality  and  intel- 
lectual influence  of  these  women  I  have  considered 
at  length  in  "  The  Women  of  the  French  Salons." 

The  inevitable  "  woman  question  "  is  not  touched 
except  as  it  may  appear  in  the  effort  to  show,  in  a 
small  degree,  the  intellectual  quality  and  influence 
of  some  of  the  representative  women  of  the  past, 
and  to  vindicate  them  from  charges  which  are  often 

ix 


PREFACE 

as  untrue  as  unjust.  Without  any  pretension  to 
profound  learning  or  philosophic  criticism,  I  have 
simply  presented  the  most  significant  facts  available, 
with  their  various  settings,  and  a  few  plain  con- 
clusions which  may  be  insufficient,  but  which  are 
at  least  sincere  and  carefully  considered.  In  esti- 
mates of  people  I  have  taken  the  most  charitable 
view  possible  without  sacrificing  truth  to  imagina- 
tion. It  is  the  safer  side  in  which  to  err,  as  the 
world  has  always  been  much  more  active  in  the 
spread  of  calumny  than  of  praise,  especially  where 
women  are  concerned. 

There  is  no  pretense  to  historical  continuity,  or 
to  a  serious  study  of  present  conditions,  in  the  single 
modern  essay.  It  simply  considers  one  phase  of 
our  own  age,  which  we  doubtless  claim  to  be  alto- 
gether golden. 

The  work  has  been  a  labor  of  love.  If  I  have 
succeeded  in  throwing  any  fresh  light  upon  the 
women  of  long  ago,  many  of  whom  are  already  half 
mythical,  or  in  giving  a  clear  impression  of  what 
we  owe  them,  my  long  and  pleasant  hours  among 
old  chronicles  and  forgotten  records  will  not  have 
been  in  vain. 

August,  1901.  AMELIA  GERE  MASON. 

x 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

PREFACE vii 

INTRODUCTION xiii 

WOMAN  IN  GREEK  POETRY  i 

SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB  25 

GLIMPSES  OF  THE  SPARTAN  WOMAN          .  51 

THE   ATHENIAN   WOMAN,   ASPASIA,   AND 

THE  FIRST  SALON       ....  69 

REVOLT  OF  THE  ROMAN  WOMEN       .        .  105 

THE  "NEW  WOMAN"  OF  OLD  ROME        .  137 

SOME  FAMOUS  WOMEN  OF  IMPERIAL  ROME  167 

MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND  THE  FIRST  CON- 
VENT      205 

THE   LEARNED  WOMEN  OF  THE  RENAIS- 
SANCE    241 

THE   LITERARY   COURTS   AND   PLATONIC 

LOVE 291 

SALON  AND  WOMAN'S  CLUB       .        .        .  353 

xi 


INTRODUCTION 

IT  has  been  quite  gravely  asserted  of  late  that 
"  woman  has  just  discovered  her  intellect."  As  a 
result  of  this  we  are  told  with  great  earnestness 
that  the  nineteenth  century  belonged  to  her  by  virtue 
of  conquest,  and  that  she  is  entering  upon  a  new  era 
of  power  and  intelligence  which  is  to  usher  in  the 
millennium. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  are  assured  with  equal 
persistency  that  the  divine  order  of  things  is  being 
upset :  that  women  are  spoiled  by  over-education ; 
that  the  time- honored  privileges  of  men  are  ruth- 
lessly invaded  and  their  mental  vigor  endangered ; 
that  morals  are  suffering ;  that  all  the  good  old  ideals 
are  in  process  of  destruction  ;  and  that  we  have  the 
dismal  prospect  of  being  ruled,  to  our  sorrow,  by  a 
race  of  Minervas  who  neglect  their  families,  if  they 
have  any,  and  insist  upon  running  things  in  their 
own  way,  to  the  ruin  of  social  order — all  of  which 
has  been  said  periodically  since  the  beginning  of  the 
world. 

xiii 


INTRODUCTION 

With  these  serious  questions  I  do  not  attempt  to 
deal  any  further  than  to  picture,  to  the  best  of  my 
ability  in  a  limited  space,  the  position  of  women  in  the 
great  ages  of  the  past,  and  the  personality,  aspira- 
tions, and  achievements  of  a  few  of  their  most  famous 
representatives,  so  far  as  this  is  possible  after  the 
lapse  of  centuries.  From  a  multiplicity  of  facts 
which  point  their  own  moral,  each  one  of  us  may 
draw  his  or  her  special  lessons. 

It  is  quite  true  that  the  woman  of  to-day  is  put- 
ting her  intellect  to  new  uses;  possibly  she  has 
become  more  vividly  conscious  of  it.  We  know 
also  that  the  average  intelligence  of  all  classes  of 
women,  as  well  as  of  men,  was  never  so  high  as 
now.  But  the  intrinsic  force  of  the  human  intellect 
is  not  measured  by  averages.  A  thousand  satellites 
do  not  make  a  sun,  though  they  may  shine  for  ages 
by  the  light  of  one.  Then,  whatever  our  achieve- 
ments may  be — and  I  do  not  underrate  them — it 
would  reflect  rather  seriously  on  the  feminine  mind 
to  suppose  that  it  could  lie  practically  dormant  all 
these  centuries,  even  under  the  heavy  disabilities 
which  were  imposed  upon  it.  The  fact  that  women 
have  always  been  in  subjection  and  on  the  whole 
very  much  oppressed  and  trampled  upon,  especially 
in  the  early  ages,  makes  it  all  the  more  remarkable 
that  they  have  left  so  many  striking  examples,  not 
only  of  the  highest  wisdom  and  intelligence,  but  of 
the  highest  executive  power,  ever  since  Deborah 

xiv 


INTRODUCTION 

sat  as  a  judge  in  Israel,  Miriam  sang  immortal  songs 
of  heroic  deeds,  and  Semiramis  conquered  Asia. 

No  doubt  our  own  deserts  are  great,  and  we  do 
well  to  burn  a  fair  amount  of  incense  to  them ;  but 
possibly  the  smoke  of  it  is  so  dense  that  we  fail  to 
see  all  the  fine  things  that  have  been  done  before  us. 
Other  women  have  been  as  clever  as  we  are,  and  as 
strong,  if  not  individually  stronger ;  many  have  been 
as  good,  a  few  perhaps  have  been  more  wicked 
than  most  of  us ;  and  the  majority  have  had  a  great 
deal  more  to  complain  of.  "  There  is  nothing  new 
under  the  sun"  was  written  so  long  ago  that  it 
seems  as  if  there  could  have  been  nothing  old. 
Even  the  "  new  woman  "  has  her  prototypes  in  the 
past,  who  have  thought,  written,  lectured,  ruled, 
asserted  themselves,  and  been  honored  as  well  as 
talked  about  in  their  day.  Men  have  prophesied 
strange  revolutions  in  human  affairs  because-  of 
them,  and  sometimes  have  sent  them  back  to  the 
chimney-corner  and  silence,  as  one  of  our  own 
chivalrous  writers  says  they  will  do  again  if  this 
irrepressible  being  who  presumes  to  have  opinions 
makes  things  too  uncomfortable  for  them.  But  the 
world  has  gone  on  marrying  and  giving  in  marriage, 
and  growing  in  the  main,  let  us  hope,  happier  and 
better,  while  the  social  condition  of  women  has 
steadily  improved,  with  an  occasional  reaction,  in 
spite  of  the  fears  of  the  timid  and  the  sneers  of  the 
cynical. 

xv 


INTRODUCTION 

It  may  be  safely  said  that  there  was  not  much 
in  the  lives  of  the  women  of  two  or  three  thousand 
years  ago  which  we  should  care  to  repeat.  Their 
field  was,  as  a  rule,  narrow  and  restricted,  their 
privileges  were  few,  their  burdens  and  sorrows 
were  many.  To  go  outside  the  sphere  prescribed 
for  them  called  for  great  talent  and  great  courage, 
since  respectability  was  usually  regarded  as  synony- 
mous with  insignificance.  But  even  in  this  aspiring, 
much-knowing,  self-gratulatory,  woman-honoring 
twentieth  century^whenever  we  are  told  that  the 
feminine  intellect  is  inherently  weak  and  has  never 
created  anything  worthy  of  immortality,  we  point 
with  pride  to  Sappho,  the  one  woman  poet  of  the 
world  whose  claim  to  the  first  rank  has  never  been 
disputed.  If  we  wish  to  illustrate  the  social  and 
political  influence  of  woman,  we  cite  Aspasia,  the 
trusted  confidante  and  adviser  of  the  greatest  states- 
men and  philosophers,  as  well  as  the  presiding 
genius  of  the  first  salon  of  which  we  have  any 
knowledge.  Yet  these  women  lived  in  the  dawn  of 
the  present  order  of  things.  We  may  recall  the 
scholarly  mind  and  masterly  executive  qualities  of 
Zenobia,  which  perhaps  have  never  been  exceeded ; 
the  profound  learning  and  brilliant  oratory  of  Hy- 
patia,  who  was  torn  in  pieces  because  of  them  by 
the  fanatical  Alexandrian  mob;  Cornelia,  gifted 
and  austere,  adding  the  courage  of  a  Stoic  to  the 
tenderness  of  a  mother;  Livia,  wise,  tactful,  and 

xvi 


INTRODUCTION 

far-seeing;  Marcella,  saint  and  grande  dame,  a 
savante,  a  leader,  and  a  heroine.  Other  figures 
of  the  classic  ages,  grave  and  thoughtful,  clever  and 
brilliant,  or  mystical  and  sweet,  pass  in  stately  array 
before  us,  each  supreme  in  her  own  field.  It  may 
have  been  an  intellectual  gift  that  she  had ;  it  may 
have  been  a  masterful  character,  or  a  heroic  virtue, 
or  a  spirit  of  sublime  self-sacrifice,  or  a  faith  so 
exalted  that  it  has  illuminated  all  the  centuries. 
Each  of  these  traits  has  its  illustrious  examples 
among  the  women  of  long  ago.. 

Passing  ages  of  darkness,  in  which  here  and  there 
the  talent  of  a  Countess  Matilda  or  an  Heloi'se 
shone  brightly  through  the  mists  of  ignorance  and 
superstition,  we  find  the  women  of  a  new  era  delv- 
ing side  by  side  with  men  in  the  mines  of  classic 
lore,  and  bringing  to  their  work  the  same  enthu- 
siasm, the  same  untiring  patience.  We  find  them, 
too,  versed  in  all  the  learning  of  their  time.  If  we 
are  disposed  to  plume  ourselves  overmuch  on  our 
intellectual  glories,  it  may  serve  as  a  lesson  in 
humility  to  recall  the  wonderful  women  of  the 
Renaissance,  who  filled  chairs  of  philosophy  and 
law  in  the  universities,  sustained  public  theses, 
spoke  in  Latin  before  learned  societies,  wrote  pure 
Greek  and  studied  Hebrew,  preached  in  cathedrals 
were  sent  on  special  embassies  and  consulted  on 
grave  affairs  of  State  by  popes  and  kings.  With 
all  our  latter-day  prestige  and  the  chivalry  of  mod- 

xvii 


INTRODUCTION 

ern  men,  it  would  be  difficult  to  imagine  Leo  XIII 
or  the  German  Emperor  consulting  a  woman  on 
serious  questions  of  policy,  or  even  listening  to  one 
unless  she  were  a  queen  with  power  that  must  be 
reckoned  with.  If  they  did,  it  would  be  behind 
closed  doors  where  no  one  could  know  it.  Yet  we 
have  wise  women  and  able  ones. 

When  men  lost  themselves  in  metaphysical  ab- 
stractions it  was  the  "  new  woman  "  of  the  Renais- 
sance who  lent  wings  to  their  minds  and  stimulated 
creation.  A  touch  from  her  uncaged  intellect 
thrilled  the  learning  of  the  age  and  put  into  it 
a  soul.  A  Vittoria  Colonna  inspires  a  Michel- 
angelo, writes  an  immortal  in  memoriam,  and 
brings  poetry  to  the  service  of  religion.  An 
Olympia  Morata  pauses  in  her  high  intellectual 
flight  to  give  an  object-lesson  in  moral  courage  and 
the  virtues  of  a  gentle  womanhood.  A  Catherine 
of  Siena  thinks  as  well  as  loves,  writes  as  well  as 
prays;  the  head  of  Christendom  is  moved  by  her 
wise  counsels,  and  the  currents  of  the  world  are 
changed. 

It  was  woman,  too,  who  married  thought  to  life, 
presided  at  the  birth  of  society,  and  diffused  the 
seeds  of  the  new  knowledge.  She  took  philoso- 
phy out  of  the  obscurity  of  ponderous  tomes,  and 
made  men  reduce  it  to  clear  terms  with  the  logical 
processes  left  out,  so  that  the  unlettered  might 
read.  If  men  held  the  palm  of  supremacy  in  rea- 
xviii 


INTRODUCTION 

son  and  abstract  thought,  women  illuminated  them 
by  sentiment  and  imagination,  so  touching  the 
world  to  living  issues.  The  swift,  facile,  intuitive 
intellects  of  women  complemented  the  slower  and 
more  logical  minds  of  men,  and  it  is  this  union  that 
creates  life  in  all  its  larger,  more  enduring  forms. 
It  was  the  social  gifts  of  women  added  to  a  flexible 
intelligence  that  raised  conversation  to  a  fine  art. 
A  Duchess  Leonora,  an  Isabella  d'Este,  a  Duchess 
Elisabetta,  call  about  them  the  wit,  learning,  talent, 
and  genius  of  an  age,  and  in  this  atmosphere  poets, 
artists,  and  men  of  letters  find  an  audience  and  an 
inspiration.  Each  gives  of  his  best,  which  is  fos- 
tered and  turned  into  new  channels.  Standards  are 
raised  by  the  association  jof  various  forms  of  excel- 
lence, and  society  reaches  a  higher  altitude  of  living 
and  thinking.  To  be  sure,  the  day  comes  when  it 
matters  more  to  talk  and  be  talked  about  than  it 
does  to  know.  The  rank  weeds  of  mediocrity  spring 
up  in  profusion  and  overshadow  the  flowers.  The 
ideals  droop  and  the  brilliant  age  ends.  But  it  has 
fulfilled  its  mission,  and  all  ages  end,  great  and  small, 
luminous  and  dark  alike. 

Did  men  degenerate  in  the  intellectual  compan- 
ionship of  women  ?  To  what  glorious  heights  did 
they  attain  in  the  dark  ages,  when  no  woman's  voice 
was  heard,  except  in  prayer?  What  heights  have 
they  reached  in  any  period  that  did  not  find  its 
ideals  in  brute  force,  when,  at  least,  a  few  women 

xix 


INTRODUCTION 

of  light  and  leading  did  not  stand  at  their  side,  though 
only  by  courtesy,  instead  of  sitting  at  their  feet? 

Did  women  lose  in  morals  when  they  gained  in 
intelligence,  as  men  so  often  delight  to  tell  us? 
Quite  the  reverse,  if  I  have  read  history  aright.  In 
seasons  of  moral  decadence  it  is  the  women  of  se- 
rious education  who  have  been  among  the  first  to  lift 
their  voices  against  the  sins  of  the  period  in  which 
they  lived.  If  they  were  often  swept  along  by  the 
current  which  they  had  no  power  to  stem,  it  was 
because  of  their  helplessness,  not  of  their  knowledge. 
They  were  not  faultless  but  human,  and  subject  at  all 
periods  to  the  same  conditions  that  were  fatal  to  men, 
who  claimed  supremacy  in  strength.  If  they  have 
sometimes  broken  on  the  rocks  of  superstition,  it  was 
because  they  had  too  little  intelligence,  not  too  much. 

Have  they  lost  the  tender  instincts  of  wifehood 
and  motherhood?  The  records  of  the  world  are 
full  of  the  unselfish  devotion  of  great  wives  and 
great  mothers,  and  the  men  who  shine  most  con- 
spicuously on  the  pages  of  history,  from  Caesar  and 
the  Gracchi  to  George  Washington  and  Daniel 
Webster,  have  been  the  sons  of  able  and  intelligent 
women.  A  cultivated  intellect  is  not  a  guaranty  of 
virtue,  but  it  has  never  yet  made  a  woman  forget 
her  love  and  allegiance  to  a  strong  and  noble  man, 
or  turn  a  cold  ear  to  the  artless  prattle  of  a  child, 
though  vanity  and  weakness  and  folly  have  done  so 
very  often.  But  it  has  many  a  time  given  her  the 

xx 


INTRODUCTION 

power  and  the  impulse  to  rear  a  world-famed  monu- 
ment to  the  one,  and  to  give  the  best  work  and  thought 
of  a  self-sacrificing  life  for  the  glory  of  the  other.  It 
is  not  simply  heredity,  but  the  atmosphere  and  com- 
panionship of  the  first  years,  that  make  or  mar  a  des- 
tiny. But  let  us  not  confound  intelligent  women  with 
pedants  and  pretenders,  or  great  women  with  small 
ones  on  a  pedestal  of  any  sort,  self-erected  or  other. 
All  this  I  trust  will  be  made  clear  by  illustration 
in  these  pages,  together  with  the  fact  that  the  in- 
tellects of  at  least  a  few  women  have  been  very 
much  awake  in  all  the  golden  ages  of  the  world, 
and  exercised  on  many  of  the  same  problems  that 
confront  them  to-day.  The  question  of  equality  has 
been  discussed  in  every  period.  It  is  needless  to 
pursue  these  discussions  here  any  further  than  to 
recall  them.  It  does  not  signify  whether  women 
have  or  have  not  done  this,  that,  or  the  other  thing 
as  well  as  men — whether  they  have  or  have  not 
been  conspicuous  for  creative  genius,  or  scientific 
genius,  or  any  other  special  form  of  genius.  It  is 
as  idle  to  ask  whether  they  are,  on  the  whole,  equal 
or  inferior  to  men,  as  to  ask  whether  an  artist  is 
equal  to  a  general,  an  inventor  to  a  philosopher,  or 
a  poet  to  a  man  of  science.  There  are  certain  things 
that  will  always  be  done  better  by  men ;  there  are 
other  things  of  equal  value  to  the  happiness  and 
well-being  of  the  race,  and  worthy  of  equal  honor, 
that  will  always  be  done  better  by  women ;  there 

xxi 


INTRODUCTION 

are  still  other  and  many  things  that  may  be  done 
equally  well  by  either.  The  final  proof  of  ability 
lies  in  its  tangible  result,  and  it  is  a  waste  of  words 
to  speculate  on  unknown  quantities,  or  to  say  that 
under  certain  conditions  women  might  have  attained 
specific  heights  which  they  have  not  attained.  No 
doubt  it  is  true,  but  one  cannot  deal  with  shadows. 
We  have  to  consider  things  as  they  are,  with  the 
possibilities  toward  which  they  point. 

But  the  past  we  have,  with  its  achievements  and 
its  lessons.  We  find  that  women,  with  all  their 
restrictions  and  in  spite  of  denunciations  from  men 
which  seem  incredible,  have  long  ago  touched  their 
highest  mark  in  poetry,  in  wisdom,  in  administra- 
tion, in  learning,  and  in  social  power.  In  the  great 
ages  'of  the  flowering  of  the  human  intellect,  a  rare 
few  have  always  stood  on  the  heights,  beacon-stars 
which  sent  out  their  rays  to  distant  centuries.  As 
the  world  has  advanced  they  have  increased  in 
number  more  than  in  altitude;  but  barriers  have 
been  removed,  one  after  another,  until  they  have 
practically  ceased  to  exist.  It  is  worth  while,  how- 
ever, to  bear  in  mind  that  four  hundred  years  ago 
a  woman,  with  many  disabilities,  had  ample  facilities 
for  reaching  her  full  intellectual  stature  with  honor 
and  without  hindrance.  Why  did  her  sex  lose  these 
privileges  so  liberally  accorded  to  men,  in  the  "  land 
of  the  free  "  and  the  early  nineteenth  century  ? 

We  too  have  our  stars — our  women  whov  think, 
xxii 


INTRODUCTION 

our  women  who  know,  our  women  who  do ;  we  too 
have  our  special  distinctions — our  triumphs  in  new 
fields  in  which  we  have  had  no  rivals.  But  I  have 
touched  only  a  single  phase  of  modern  life.  There 
are  too  many  fresh  and  difficult  problems  to  be  dis- 
posed of  in  an  essay.  Then  we  can  hardly  hear 
the  message  of  the  age  for  the  din  of  the  voices. 
It  is  true  enough  that  the  old  ideals  are  disappear- 
ing. What  we  do  not  know  yet  is  whether,  apart 
from  the  intelligence  which  gives  all  life  a  fresh  im- 
pulse and  meaning,  the  new  ones  forced  upon  us  by 
the  march  of  events  are  better.  It  suffices  here  to 
say  that  what  really  signifies  to  the  woman  of  to-day 
is  to  expand  in  her  own  natural  proportions,  to 
maintain  her  own  individuality  without  the  loss  of 
her  essential  charm,  to  temper  strength  of  soul  with 
tenderness,  to  strive  for  achievement  instead  of  the 
passing  honors  of  the  hour,  to  preserve  the  fine  and 
dignified  quality  of  an  enlarged  and  perfected  wo- 
manhood. It  is  not  as  the  poor  copy  of  a  man 
that  she  will  ever  come  into  her  rightful  kingdom. 
Duty  or  necessity  may  lead  one  into  strange  and 
hard  paths,  but  the  crown  of  glory  is  not  for  those 
who  fling  away  their  birthright  to  join  in  the  strident 
chorus  of  the  eager  crowd  that  kneels  before  the 
glittering  altars  of  the  money-gods,  or  to  follow  the 
procession  that  throngs  the  dusty  highways  and, 
lifting  its  eyes  no  more  to  the  mountain-tops,  sings 
its  own  apotheosis  in  the  market-place, 
xxiii 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK    POETRY 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK 
POETRY 

9B 

•    Denunciation  of  Woman  in  Early  Poets    • 

•    Kindlier  Attitude  of  Homer    • 

Penelope    •    Nausicaa    •    Andromache    •    Helen 

•    Contemptuous  Attitude  of  the  Dramatists    • 

•    Their  Fine  Types    • 

•    Iphigenia    •   Alcestis    •    Antigone    • 

•    Consideration  for  Women  in  the  Heroic  Age    • 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 


HE  badness  of  man  is  better  than  the 
goodness  of  woman,"  says  a  Jewish 
proverb.  And  worse  still,  "  A  man 
of  straw  is  better  than  a  woman  of 
gold."  As  men  made  the  proverbs, 
these  may  be  commended  for  modesty  as  well  as 
chivalry.  The  climax  is  reached  in  this  amiable 
sentiment :  "  A  dead  wife  is  the  best  goods  in  a 
man's  house."  Under  such  teaching  it  is  not  at 
all  surprising  that  the  Jews  began  their  morning 
invocations,  two  thousand  years  ago,  with  these 
significant  words :  "  Blessed  art  thou,  O  Lord  our 
God,  King  of  the  Universe,  who  hast  not  made  me 
a  heathen,  who  hast  not  made  me  a  slave,  who  hast 
not  made  me  a  woman." 

These  are  very  good  samples  of  the  manner  in 
which  women  were  talked  of  in  ancient  days.     In 

3 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

Egypt,  however,  they  fared  rather  better.  We  are 
even  told  that  men  pledged  obedience  to  their  wives, 
in  which  case  they  doubtless  spoke  of  them  more 
respectfully.  At  all  events,  they  had  great  political 
influence,  were  honored  as  priestess  or  prophetess, 
and  had  the  privilege  of  owning  themselves  and 
their  belongings.  But  a  state  of  affairs  in  which 

Men  indoors  sit  weaving  at  the  loom, 

And  wives  outdoors  must  earn  their  daily  bread, 

has  its  unpleasant  side.  How  it  was  regarded  by 
women  does  not  appear,  but  if  they  found  a  paradise 
they  were  speedily  driven  out  of  it.  Evidently  men 
did  not  find  the  exchange  of  occupations  agreeable. 
Two  or  three  centuries  before  our  era,  a  Greek  ruler 
came  to  the  throne,  who  had  other  views,  and  every 
woman  awoke  one  morning  to  the  fact  that  her  day 
was  ended,  her  power  was  gone,  and  that  she  owned 
nothing  at  all.  Everything  that  she  had,  from  her 
house  and  her  land  to  her  feathers  and  her  jewels, 
was  practically  confiscated,  so  that  she  could  no 
longer  dispose  of  it.  These  women  had  rights,  and 
lost  them.  Why  they  were  taken  away  we  do  not 
know.  Possibly  too  much  was  claimed.  But  all 
this  goes  to  prove  that  "  chivalrous  man  "  cannot 
be  trusted  so  long  as  he  holds  not  simply  the  bal- 
ance of  power,  but  the  whole  of  it. 

Apart  from   this  little   episode,  the  early  world 
never  drifted  far  from  the  traditions  of  the  Garden 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

of  Eden,  where  Adam  naturally  reserved  the  su- 
premacy for  himself,  and  sent  obedient  Eve  about 
her  housewifely  duties  among  the  roses  and  myrtles. 
If  these  were  soon  turned  into  thorns  and  thistles,  it 
was  only  her  proper  punishment  for  bringing  into 
the  world  its  burden  of  human  ills. 

The  changes  were  rung  on  this  theme  in  all  races 
and  languages.  The  esthetic  Greeks  surpassed  the 
Jews  in  their  denunciations,  and  exhausted  their  wit 
in  cynical  phrases  that  lacked  even  the  dignity  of 
criticism.  No  writers  have  abused  women  more 
persistently.  It  is  an  evidence  of  great  moral  vital- 
ity that,  in  the  face  of  such  undisguised  contempt, 
they  were  able  to  maintain  any  prestige  at  all.  If 
we  may  credit  the  poets  who  gave  the  realistic  side 
of  things,  there  was  neither  honor  nor  joy  in  the 
life  of  the  average  woman  who  dwelt  in  the  shadow 
of  Helicon.  It  was  bare  and  cheerless,  without 
even  the  sympathy  that  tempers  the  hardest  fate. 
This  pastoral  existence,  which  seems  so  serene,  had 
its  serpent,  and  that  serpent  was  a  woman.  A 
wife  was  a  necessary  evil.  If  a  man  did  not  marry, 
he  was  doomed  to  a  desolate  age;  if  he  did,  his 
happiness  was  sure  to  be  ruined.  Out  of  ten  types 
of  women  described  by  the  elder  Simonides,  only 
one  was  fit  for  a  wife,  and  this  was  because  she  had 
the  nature  of  a  bee  and  was  likely  to  add  to  her 
husband's  fortune.  As  the  proportion  was  so  small, 
the  risk  may  be  imagined.  Her  side  of  the  ques- 

5 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

tion  was  never  taken  into  account  at  all.  The  com- 
fort of  so  insignificant  a  being  was  really  not  worth 
considering.  "  A  man  has  but  two  pleasant  days 
with  his  wife,"  says  the  satirist;  "  one  when  he  mar- 
ries her,  the  other  when  he  buries  her." 

Hesiod  mentions,  among  the  troubles  of  having  a 
wife,  that  she  insists  upon  sitting  at  table  with  her 
husband.  Later,  when  the  Greeks  found  their  plea- 
sure in  fields  of  the  intellect  which  were  closed  to 
women,  even  this  poor  privilege  was  usually  denied 
her,  and  always  ^hen  other  men  were  present. 
Hesiod  was  evidently  a  disappointed  man,  and  took 
dark  views  of  things,  women  in  particular,  but  he 
only  followed  the  fashion  of  his  time  in  making  them 
responsible  for  the  troubles  and  sorrows  of  men. 
It  was  the  old,  old  story :  "  The  woman  gave  me, 
and  I  did  eat."  She  was  the  Pandora  who  had  let 
loose  upon  the  world  all  the  ills,  and  kept  in  her  box 
the  hope  that  might  have  made  them  tolerable.  If 
she  found  her  position  an  unpleasant  one,  she  had 
the  consolation  of  being  told  that  she  was  one  of 
the  evils  sent  into  the  world  by  the  gods,  to  punish 
men  for  the  sin  of  Prometheus.  The  other  was 
disease. 

This  is  a  sorry  picture,  but  it  reflects  the  usual 
Greek  attitude  toward  women,  and  cannot  be 
ignored,  much  as  we  should  like  to  honor  the  sense 
of  justice,  and  the  heart  as  well  as  the  intellect  of 
men  of  so  brilliant  a  race. 

6 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

II 

THERE  is  another  side,  however,  upon  which  it  is 
more  pleasing  to  dwell.  By  some  curious  para- 
dox, the  Hellenic  poets,  who  delighted  in  saying 
such  disagreeable  things,  have  given  us  many  of 
the  finest  types  of  womanhood,  though  these 
women  lived  only  in  the  imagination  of  great  men, 
or  so  near  the  border-land  of  shadows  as  to  be  half 
mythical.  It  may  be  said  to  the  credit  of  Homer 
that  he  never  joined  in  the  popular  chorus  of  abuse. 
His  women  are  not  permitted  to  forget  their  sub- 
jection, but  the  high-born  ones  at  least  are  treated 
with  gentle  courtesy,  and  he  indulges  in  no  superflu- 
ous flings  at  their  inferiority  or  general  worthless- 
ness.  Many  of  them  hold  places  of  honor  and 
power.  These  women  of  a  primitive  age,  who  stand 
at  the  portals  of  the  young  world  luminous  and 
smiling,  or  draped  in  the  stately  dignity  of  antique 
goddesses,  still  retain  the  distinction  of  classic  ideals. 
They  look  out  from  the  misty  dawn  of  things  with 
veiled  faces,  but  we  know  that  love  shone  from 
their  soft  eyes,  and  words  of  wisdom  fell  from  their 
rosy  lips. 

The  vulgar  of  my  sex  I  most  exceed 

In  real  power,  when  most  humane  my  deed, 

says  the  gentle  Penelope,  as,  tear-dimmed  and 
constant,  she  weaves  and  unweaves  the  many- 

7 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

colored  threads,  and  waits  for  her  royal  lord,  who 
basks  in  the  smiles  of  Calypso  over  the  sea,  and 
forgets  her  until  he  tires  of  the  fascinating  siren  and 
begins  to  long  for  his  home.  If  there  was  a  trace  of 
artfulness  in  the  innocent  device  of  the  faithful 
wife,  it  was  all  the  weapon  she  had  to  save  her  honor. 
There  is  no  lovelier  picture  of  radiant  girlhood 
than  the  graceful  Nausicaa,  as  she  takes  the  silken 
reins  in  her  white  hands,  and  drives  across  the 
plains  in  the  first  flush  of  the  morning  to  help  her 
maids  "  wash  their  fair  garments  in  the  limpid 
streams."  When  the  snowy  robes  are  laid  in  the 
sun  to  dry,  they  play  a  game  of  ball,  this  daugh- 
ter of  kings  leading  all  the  rest.  We  hear  the  echo 
of  her  silvery  laughter,  and  see  the  flash  of  her 
shining  veil  as  her  light  feet  fly  over  the  greensward. 
But  the  dignity  of  the  princess  asserts  itself  with 
the  forethought  and  sympathy  of  the  woman  in 
the  discreet  words  with  which  she  greets  the  desti- 
tute stranger,  and  modestly  directs  him  to  her 
royal  mother.  Her  swift  eye  notes  his  air  of  dis- 
tinction, his  courteous  address,  and  she  naively 
wishes  in  her  heart  that  the  gods  would  send  her 
such  a  husband.  It  is  to  Arete  that  she  bids  him 
go,  to  the  beloved  queen  who  shares  the  throne  of 
Alcinous  with  "  honors  never  before  given  to  a 
woman."  Simple  is  this  gentle  lady  and  gracious, 
whether  she  sits  in  her  stately  palace  working  rare 
designs  in  crimson  and  purple  wools,  or  gives  wise 

8 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

counsel  to  her  husband,  or  goes  abroad  among  the 
people,  who  adore  her  as  a  goddess, 

To  heal  divisions,  to  relieve  the  oppressed, 
In  virtue  rich,  in  blessing  others,  blessed. 

A  more  touching  though  less  radiant  figure  is 
Andromache,  who  shows  no  trace  of  weakness  as 
she  folds  her  child  to  her  bosom,  after  the  tender 
farewell  of  her  brave  husband,  and  goes  home,  sad 
and  prophetic,  to  "  ply  her  melancholy  loom,"  and 
brood  over  the  hopelessness  of  her  coming  fate. 

These  are  the  great  Homeric  types,  women  of 
simple  and  noble  outlines,  untouched  by  the  fires 
of  passion,  wise,  loyal,  efficient,  and  brave,  but  rich 
in  sympathy  and  all  sweet  affections.  The  central 
figures  of  the  fireside,  with  needle  and  distaff  in  hand, 
they  were  not  without  a  fine  intelligence  which,  after 
the  fashion  of  primitive  times,  found  its  field  in  the 
every-day  problems  of  life.  The  mysteries  of  know- 
ledge and  speculation  had  not  opened  to  them. 

There  is  no  fairer  thing 
Than  when  the  lord  and  lady  with  one  soul 
One  home  possess. 

This  was  the  poet's  domestic  ideal,  and  the  ages 
have  not  brought  a  better  one,  though  they  have 
brought  us  many  things  to  make  it  more  beautiful. 
But  what  shall  we  say  of  Helen,  the  alluring 
child  of  fancy  and  romance,  who  stands  as  an 

9 


WOMAN   IN    GREEK   POETRY 

eternal  type  of  the  beauty  that  led  captive  the 
Hellenic  world  ?  Even  this  fair-haired  daughter  of 
the  gods,  who  set  nations  at  variance,  and  did  so 
many  things  not  to  be  commended,  gathers  a 
subtle  charm  from  the  domestic  setting  which  the 
poet's  art  has  given  her.  She  sits  serenely  in  the 
midst  of  the  woes  she  has  brought,  teaching  her 
maidens  to  work  after  strange  patterns,  and  weav- 
ing her  own  tragic  story  in  the  golden  web.  It 
does  not  occur  to  her  that  she  is  very  wicked ; 
indeed,  she  thinks  regretfully  that,  after  all,  she  is 
worthy  of  a  braver  man.  The  tears  that  fall  do 
not  dim  her  brightness.  Gray-haired  men  go  to 
their  death  under  the  spell  of  her  divine  loveliness, 
but  forget  to  chide.  She  is  the  helpless  victim  of 
Aphrodite,  who  is  indulgently  charged  with  all  her 
frailties.  Twice  ten  years  have  gone  since  she 
sailed  away  from  Sparta,  but  when  her  forgiving 
husband  takes  her  home  she  has  lost  none  of  that 
mystic  beauty  which  is  "  never  stale  and  never  old." 
She  takes  her  place  as  naturally  as  if  she  had  not 
left  it,  plays  again  the  pleasant  role  of  hostess,  and 
looks  with  care  after  the  comfort  of  her  guests. 
When  Telemachus  goes  to  see  her,  and  recalls  the 
uncertain  fate  of  the  wandering  heroes,  she  gives 
him  the  "  star-bright "  veil  her  own  hands  have 
wrought  to  help  dry  the  tears  she  has  caused  to 
flow.  But  she  is  troubled  by  no  superfluous  grief. 
What  the  gods  send  she  tranquilly  accepts. 

10 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK    POETRY 

When  the  poets  began  to  analyze,  the  glamour  of 
this  witching  goddess  was  lost,  and  she  became  a 
sinning,  soul-destroying  woman,  a  human  Circe  that 
lured  men  to  ruin.  But  the  Greeks  did  not  like  to 
see  their  idols  slandered  or  broken,  so  in  later  times 
they  gave  her  a  shadowy  existence  on  the  banks  of 
the  Nile,  where  we  catch  a  last  glimpse  of  her,  sit- 
ting unruffled  among  the  palms,  in  all  the  splendor 
of  her  radiant  beauty,  twining  wreaths  of  lotus- 
flowers  for  her  golden  hair,  and  learning  rare  secrets 
of  Eastern  looms,  while  men  fought  and  died  across 
the  sea  for  a  phantom.  It  is  not  upon  these 
fanciful  pictures,  however,  that  we  like  to  dwell. 
The  Helen  who  lives  and  breathes  for  us  is  the 
Helen  of  Homer,  fair  and  sweet,  more  sinned  against 
than  sinning,  pitying  the  sorrows  she  cannot  cure, 
but  saved  by  her  matchless  charm  from  the  chill- 
ing frost  of  mortal  censure. 

These  women  of  Homer  were  mostly  wives  and 
daughters  of  kings.  Whether  it  was  because  he 
had  been  greeted  with  gentle  words  and  caressing 
smiles  by  the  fair  patricians  to  whom  he  recited 
his  verses  that  he  painted  them  in  such  glowing 
colors,  or  because  the  women  of  the  heroic  age 
really  had  the  unstudied  grace  and  simple  dignity 
that  spring  from  conscious  freedom,  we  cannot 
know.  But  it  is  certain  that  the  measure  of  honor 
and  liberty  which  they  enjoyed  was  a  privilege  of 
caste  rather  than  of  sex,  though  it  gave  them  a 

II 


WOMAN   IN    GREEK   POETRY 

virile  quality,  and  added  a  fresh  luster  of  spon- 
taneity to  their  domestic  virtues. 

The  lesser  women  had  small  consideration.  We 
find  the  captives,  even  of  royal  descent,  tossed 
about  among  their  masters  with  no  regard  to  their 
wishes,  or  rights — if  they  had  any,  which  seems 
doubtful.  The  gentle  Brisei's,  a  high  priest's  daugh- 
ter, and  as  potent  a  factor  in  the  final  disasters  of 
the  Greeks  as  the  divine  Helen  herself,  was  the 
merest  puppet  in  the  hands  of  the  so-called  heroes 
who  quarreled  over  her,  and  Chrysei's  was  only 
saved  from  the  same  fate  by  the  kind  interference 
of  Apollo.  The  bitterest  drop  in  the  cup  of  Hec- 
tor was  the  thought  of  his  wife  led  away  weeping 
by  some  "  mail-clad  Achaian,"  with  no  one  to  hear 
her  cries  or  save  her  from  the  hopeless  fate  of 
weaving  and  carrying  water  at  the  bidding  of  an- 
other. The  women  of  the  people  fared  little  better, 
if  as  well.  Ulysses  had  n'o  hesitation  in  putting  to 
death  a  dozen  of  his  wife's  maids  whose  conduct  did 
not  please  him,  and  he  threatened  his  devoted  nurse 
Euryclea  with  a  like  fate,  if  she  revealed  the  secret 
of  his  identity,  which  she  had  been  the  first  to  divine. 

Ill 

IT  is  difficult  to  comprehend  the  attitude  of  the 
dramatists  of  the  golden  age  toward  women.  They 
have  left  many  fine  and  powerful  types ;  they  have 

12 


WOMAN   IN    GREEK   POETRY 

created  heroines  of  singular  moral  grandeur  and  a 
superb  quality  of  courage  that  led  them  to  face 
death  or  the  bitterest  fate  as  serenely  as  if  they 
were  composing  themselves  to  pleasant  dreams; 
but  there  was  no  insult  or  injustice  too  great  to  be 
heaped  upon  their  sex. 

There  is  not  anything,  nor  will  be  ever, 
Than  woman  worse,  let  what  will  fall  on  man, 

says  Sophocles.  JEschylus,  who  is,  on  the  whole, 
the  most  kindly  disposed,  makes  Eteocles  call  the 
Theban  maidens  a  "brood  intolerable,"  "loathed 
of  the  wise,"  and  emphasizes  his  opinion  in  these 
flattering  lines: 

Ne'er  be  it  mine,  in  ill  estate  or  good, 
To  dwell  together  with  the  race  of  women. 

Euripides  strikes  the  bitterest  note  of  all,  and 
sums  up  his  verdict  with  crushing  force : 

Dire  is  the  violence  of  ocean  waves, 
And  dire  the  blast  of  rivers  and  hot  fires, 
And  dire  is  want  and  dire  are  countless  things, 
But  nothing  is  so  dire  and  dread  as  woman. 
No  painting  could  express  her  dreadfulness, 
No  words  describe  it.     If  a  god  made  woman 
And  fashioned  her,  he  was  for  men  the  artist 
Of  woes  unnumbered,  and  their  deadly  foe. 

And  this  in  spite  of  such  characters  as  Alcestis 
and  Iphigenia,  who,  from  a  man's  point  of  view, 

13 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

certainly  deserved  an  apotheosis!  It  is  said  that 
Euripides  was  unfortunate  in  his  wives,  which  may 
account,  in  part,  for  his  cynical  temper.  One 
might  suspect  that  the  author  of  such  a  diatribe 
gave  ample  cause  for  disaffection,  and  that  he  had 
no  more  than  his  deserts.  But  he  seems  to  have 
avenged  himself,  as  smaller  men  have  done,  by 
railing  at  the  whole  sex.  It  is  easy  enough  to 
understand  the  portrayal  of  a  Phaedra  or  a  Medea 
in  dark  colors,  and  one  can  forgive  the  mad  ravings 
of  despair.  But  so  many  needless  words  of  general 
contempt  signify  more  than  a  dramatic  purpose. 
To-day  they  would  not  be  possible  in  a  civilized 
country.  The  drama  reflects  the  dominant  senti- 
ments of  the  time,  if  not  always  those  of  the  author, 
and  the  frequency  of  such  ungracious,  not  to  say 
virulent,  attacks  proves  the  complaisance  of  a 
Greek  audience  and  the  absence  of  all  consideration 
for  women.  Even  Aristophanes  takes  Euripides 
to  task  for  being  a  woman-hater,  and  turns  upon 
him  the  sharpest  points  of  his  satire ;  but  he  has 
himself  added  the  last  touch  of  abuse,  which  only 
misses  its  aim  for  modern  ears  by  its  incredible 
coarseness.  He  gives  to  women  all  of  the  lowest 
vices,  without  a  redeeming  virtue.  Their  presence 
at  the  comedy  was  quite  out  of  the  question. 

One  is  tempted  to  multiply  these  quotations,  as 
they  put  in  so  vivid  a  light  the  injustice  suffered 
by  women  when  the  expression  of  such  sentiments 

14 


WOMAN   IN    GREEK   POETRY 

was  habitual.  The  saddest  feature  of  it  is  that  men 
abused  them  for  the  ignorance  and  frivolity  which 
they  had  themselves  practically  compelled.  The 
dramatists  lived  and  wrote  in  an  age  when  men  had 
reached  a  higher  plane  of  knowledge  from  which 
orthodox  women  were  rigidly  excluded.  The 
natural  consequence  of  this  exclusion  was  a  total 
lack  of  companionship,  which  sent  the  Attic  woman 
into  a  species  of  slavery,  while  her  husband  found 
his  society  in  a  class  that  was  better  educated  and 
more  interesting,  but  less  respectable.  This  state 
of  things  was  reflected  in  Athenian  literature, 
especially  in  the  comedies,  and  it  doubtless  led  to 
the  general  disdain  of  women  so  freely  expressed  in 
the  tragedies.  To  reconcile  such  an  attitude  with 
the  strong  character  of  many  of  the  women  por- 
trayed is  not  easy,  unless  we  take  them  as  object- 
lessons  to  their  sex  in  the  honor  and  glory  of 
self-sacrifice. 

In  the  glamour  the  poets  have  cast  about  their 
great  creations,  and  the  marvelous  power  with 
which  they  have  made  these  women  live  for  us,  we 
are  apt  to  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  moral  force 
of  the  best  of  them  is  centered  in  the  superhuman 
immolation  of  themselves  for  the  benefit  of  men,  to 
whom  it  never  occurs  that  any  consideration  what- 
ever is  due  to  these  innocent  sufferers.  They  are 
subject  to  men,  and  ready  to  lay  down  their  lives, 
if  need  be,  to  make  the  world  comfortable  and 

15 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK    POETRY 

pleasant  for  them;  yet  they  have  only  sorrow  for 
themselves. 

More  than  a  thousand  women  is  one  man 
Worthy  to  see  the  light  of  life, 

says  the  young  Iphigenia,  as  she  folds  her  saffron 
veil  about  her,  and  goes  to  her  doom  with  words 
of  love  and  forgiveness,  praying  for  the  cruel 
masters  she  dies  to  save.  The  essence  of  her  train- 
ing, as  of  her  religion,  lies  in  this  meekly  uttered 
sentiment,  though  the  fated  child  pleads  for  pity, 
since  "  the  sorriest  life  is  better  than  the  noblest 
death."  Strong  men,  among  whom  are  her  father 
and  Achilles,  the  heroes  of  the  ancient  world,  stand 
calmly  by  and  let  her  die.  The  powerful  lover, 
who  will  give  his  life  later  to  avenge  the  death  of 
his  friend,  is  sorry  to  lose  so  sweet  a  flower  for  his 
wife,  but  he  makes  no  real  effort  to  save  her. 
When  she  is  told  that  the  gods  have  decreed  her 
sacrifice  for  the  good  of  her  country,  the  cry  of 
nature  is  silenced,  the  touching  appeal  is  stilled. 
She  rises  to  a  divine  height  of  courage,  and  is  the 
consoler  rather  than  the  consoled. 

Not  less  pathetic  is  the  fate  of  Alcestis,  though 
it  is  a  voluntary  one.  She  robes  herself  for  the 
tomb  as  tranquilly  as  if  she  were  going  out  on  a 
message  of  mercy.  With  sad  dignity  she  crowns 
with  myrtle  the  altar  at  which  she  prays,  but  not 
until  she  takes  leave  of  the  familiar  room  s-o  conse- 

16 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

crated  by  love  and  happiness  do  the  tears  begin  to 
fall.  This  tender  wife,  who  freely  gives  her  life  to 
save  her  husband,  does  not  falter  as  she  passion- 
ately embraces  her  weeping  children,  and  bids  a 
kind  farewell  to  her  pitying  servants.  The  only 
thing  she  asks  for  herself  is  to  see  the  sun  once 
more,  and  she  tries  to  inspire  this  selfish,  posing, 
half-hearted  husband  with  her  own  fortitude,  as 
her  spirit  "  glides  on  light  wing  down  the  silent 
paths  of  sleep."  One  cannot  help  wondering  if  she 
never  had  a  misgiving  that  the  man  who  could  ask 
his  wife  to  comfort  him  for  his  unspeakable  misery 
in  letting  her  die  for  him  was  not  worth  dying  for. 
But  the  Greek  women  had  been  long  trained  in  the 
school  of  passive  suffering,  and  it  never  seemed  to 
occur  to  them  that  it  was  not  quite  in  the  nature  of 
things  for  the  weaker  half  of  the  human  family  to 
have  a  monopoly  of  the  sacrifices.  It  was  a  part 
of  their  destiny ;  the  gods  so  willed  it.  Men  looked 
upon  it  as  a  comfortable  arrangement  for  them- 
selves, that  had  good  moral  results  for  women. 
To-day  we  are  inclined  to  ask  why  a  discipline  that 
is  good  for  women,  and  tends  toward  their  moral 
perfection,  is  not  also  good  for  men,  who  have  a 
like  need  of  being  perfected. 

But,  in  spite  of  rational  theories,  the  world's 
heart  still  thrills  to  a  generous  emotion  so  over- 
powering as  to  drown  all  consideration  of  self, 
whether  or  not  it  is  faulty  in  its  mundane  wisdom 

17 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

or  its  arithmetic.  And  this  it  is  which  casts  so 
lasting  a  glamour  over  the  women  who  loom  out 
of  the  twilight  of  that  far-off  time,  in  noble  pro- 
portions that  dwarf  the  selfish,  arrogant  men  with 
whom  they  are  mated.  They  rise  to  the  dignity 
of  goddesses  in  their  divine  pity  and  courage, 
while  the  great  Achilles,  the  masculine  ideal  of  the 
Greeks,  weeps  like  a  child,  and  sends  a  generation 
of  men  to  sleep  on  the  plains  of  Troy,  because  he 
cannot  have  what  he  wishes. 

Yet  it  is  in  the  minds  of  men  that  these  women 
were  conceived,  and  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that 
they  had  not  at  least  some  faint  counterpart  in  real 
life,  though  possibly  men,  and  women  as  well,  are 
apt  to  make  ideals  of  what  they  think  ought  to  be 
rather  than  of  what  is.  But  why  did  the  Greek 
poets  cast  such  ridicule  and  dishonor  upon  the  sex 
which  they  have  shown  capable  of  such  supreme 
devotion  and  such  exalted  virtues  ? 

There  is  a  touch  of  justice  in  the  bitter  scorn 
with  which  the  blind  CEdipus  speaks  of  his  sons  who 

Keep  house  at  home  like  maidens  in  their  prime, 

while  his  daughters  wear  themselves  to  death  for 
him  and  for  his  sorrows. 

No  women  they,  but  men  in  will  to  toil. 

Perhaps  Antigone  is  a  trifle  too  coldly  perfect, 
too  faultlessly  wise — a  tacit  reflection  upon  every- 

18 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

day  human  nature,  that  likes  its  ease,  and  counts  the 
cost  of  its  renunciations.  We  look  for  a  trace  of 
weakness,  a  warm  burst  of  living  tenderness.  But 
duty  is  shy  like  love,  and  chary  of  expression.  "  I 
do  not  love  a  friend  who  loves  in  words,"  is  the 
cry  of  her  steadfast  soul.  There  she  stands,  in  the 
still  majesty  of  a  sorrow  that  lies  too  deep  for  tears, 
supreme  among  the  classic  types  of  the  world  as  a 
model  of  filial  devotion.  Cordelia,  true  and  loyal 
as  she  is,  and  tender  at  heart,  does  not  approach 
her  in  strength  and  dignity.  But  the  duty  of  the 
Greek  heroine  does  not  end  with  her  father's  death. 
She  lays  down  her  life  at  last  that  the  false-hearted 
brother,  who  has  given  her  no  gentle  consideration 
in  her  days  of  helplessness  and  despair,  may  not  lie 
unburied  on  the  plains  of  Thebes,  and  so  wander 
without  rest  in  Hades.  She  laments  the  lost  plea- 
sures of  living.  No  husband  or  children  are  to  be 
hers.  Yet  no  enthusiasm  of  passion  or  romance 
tempers  this  "  cold  statue's  fine-wrought  grace." 
The  man  she  was  to  marry  is  secondary.  Love,  in 
our  sense,  does  not  enter  as  a  motive  power  into  her 
life,  but  her  human  need  of  sympathy  is  shown  in  a 
few  pathetic  words : 

And  yet,  of  all  my  friends, 
Not  one  bewails  my  fate ; 
No  kindly  tear  is  shed. 

There  are  a  few  women  of  colossal  wickedness 
who  serve  as  foils,  or  shadows  in  the  picture.     Their 

19 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

very  sins  are  a  part  of  the  overmastering  strength 
that  defies  its  hard  limitations.  "  Of  all  things,  as 
many  as  have  life  and  intellect,  we  women  are  the 
most  wretched  race ;  we  must  first  purchase  a  hus- 
band with  excess  of  money,  then  receive  him  as 
our  lord,"  is  the  bitter  protest  of  the  wronged 
Medea,  and  the  key-note  to  her  tragical  destiny. 
Clytemnestra  says  that  she  has  always  been  trained 
to  obey,  but  she  towers  far  above  her  warrior  hus- 
band in  force  as  in  crime.  She  resents  his  unfaith- 
fulness; she  does  not  forgive  him  for  the  inhuman 
sacrifice  of  their  innocent  daughter ;  she  meets  him 
on  his  own  ground.  It  is  appalling,  the  stern  and 
pitiless  passion  with  which  her  untamed  spirit, 
spurred  on  by  the  white-hot  hate  which  is  often  a 
great  love  reversed,  tramples  upon  every  human  im- 
pulse, and  sweeps  a  whole  race  with  her  to  destruc- 
tion. The  clash  of  elemental  forces  is  there,  even 
though  the  responsibility  is  shifted  upon  the  gods, 
who  use  these  frail  mortals  as  blind  instruments  in 
their  inscrutable  plans. 

But  these  monsters  of  crime  are  few,  and  seem 
to  throw  into  stronger  relief  the  self-forgetful  women 
who  exalt  their  inferior  position,  and  bend  their 
heads  to  the  yoke  with  such  stately  dignity  that  they 
seem  to  command  even  in  obeying.  For,  in  spite  of 
the  important  part  assigned  them  in  the  world  of 
affairs  as  well  as  at  the  fireside,  they  are  constantly 
reminded  of  their  little  worth.  "  Let  not  women 

20 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

counsel,"  is  the  advice  of  men  to  the  wisest  of 
them. 

Woman,  know 
That  silence  is  a  woman's  noblest  part, 

says  the  ill-tempered  Ajax  to  his  amiable  wife. 
This  gentle  Tecmessa  wishes  to  die  with  him,  for 
"Why  should  I  wish  to  live  if  you  are  dead?" 
He  only  tells  her  to  mind  her  own  affairs  and  be 
silent.  Telemachus  orders  his  faithful  mother  not 
to  meddle  with  men's  business,  but  it  was  precisely 
because  she  did  meddle  with  it,  and  tried,  by  vari- 
ous simple  arts,  to  bring  order  into  the  chaos 
men  had  raised,  that  his  royal  father  had  any  home 
to  return  to,  or  any  kingdom  to  leave  to  his  ungra- 
cious son. 


IV 

So  far  as  we  can  gather  from  Homer,  women  of 
the  better  sort  had  a  degree  of  consideration  in  the 
heroic  age  which  they  lost  at  a  later  period.  When 
men  fought  or  tilled  the  soil,  it  was  in  the  natural 
order  of  things  that  they  should  stay  at  home  to 
look  after  their  children  and  households.  The  divi- 
sion of  duties  was  fair  enough.  In  a  reign  of  brute 
force  they  needed  protection,  and  though  it  was 
pretty  well  settled  that  men  were  born  to  rule  and 
women  to  be  ruled,  there  was  evidently  a  great 

21 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

deal  of  pleasant  companionship  in  family  life. 
Compared  with  the  seclusion  of  the  Oriental  harem, 
the  position  of  these  women  was  one  of  freedom, 
and  it  lasted  to  historic  times.  Their  supreme  dis- 
tinction was  a  moral  one.  Books  they  had  not. 
Of  literature  nothing  was  known  beyond  the  verses 
and  tales  of  wandering  minstrels.  Art  was  little 
more  than  a  handicraft.  If  men  worked  in  marble 
or  in  metal,  women  designed  patterns  for  weaving 
and  embroidery.  Men  had  not  begun  to  put  their 
thoughts  or  speculations  into  enduring  form,  and 
women  were  not  excluded  from  a  large  part  of  their 
lives.  But  so  perfectly  did  many  of  them  realize 
the  world's  ideal  of  feminine  virtues  that  we  ask  no 
more.  They  stand  upon  pedestals,  like  the  master- 
pieces of  Greek  sculpture,  noble  in  their  simplicity 
and  lovely  in  the  repose  of  their  surpassing  strength. 
But  the  dramatists  reflected  in  a  thousand  ways 
the  altered  spirit  of  an  age  in  which  good  women 
had  no  visible  part.  Their  immortal  heroines  are 
equally  strong  and  instinct  with  vitality,  though 
less  simple  and  of  severer  mold,  but  they  are  revered 
from  afar  as  the  goddesses  were,  while  real  women 
are  a  target  for  abuse  and  ridicule.  It  is  to  no  rare 
and  perishable  beauty,  no  fleeting  grace,  no  intel- 
lectual brilliancy,  that  they  owe  their  eternal  charm, 
but  to  their  moral  greatness,  their  strength  of  sacri- 
fice. These  exalted  ideals,  so  bravely  tender,  so 
patiently  enduring,  were  the  victims  of  adverse  des- 

22 


WOMAN    IN    GREEK   POETRY 

tiny  or  of  their  own  devotion.  But  the  world  held 
for  them  no  reward  in  the  masculine  heart.  There 
were  many  women  in  classic  story  who  died  for  men, 
but  only  one  for  whom  men  were  willing  to  die,  and 
this  was  Helen,  whose  divine  beauty  appealed  to 
the  senses  and  the  imagination.  She  was  made  to 
be  loved,  to  command;  all  others  were  made  to 
serve.  The  Greeks  adored  beauty ;  they  lived  in 
it,  they  created  it.  Here  lay  their  pride ;  here 
more  than  once  they  found  their  Nemesis.  But 
virtue  they  gave  a  place  apart,  as  they  did  the  wise 
Athena,  who  towered  in  golden  isolation  over  the 
Attic  divinities.  It  had  no  share  in  the  joy  of 
existence. 

Beneath  the  glad  paeans  of  heroes  we  hear  at  in- 
tervals, across  the  ages,  the  clear  voices  of  women 
chanting  a  miserere  in  an  undertone  of  sorrow  or 
despair.  Doubtless  the  poets  saw  and  felt  the 
tragical  side  of  their  lives,  but  tradition  had  the 
inevitability  of  fate,  as  it  has  had  in  other  times. 
They  have  given  us  great  and  lonely  ideals  of  wo- 
manhood, but  a  somber  picture  of  the  place  held  by 
living  women  in  the  Athenian  world. 


SAPPHO    AND    THE    FIRST 
WOMAN'S    CLUB 


SAPPHO   AND    THE    FIRST 
WOMAN'S    CLUB 


•  Golden  Age  of  Lyric  Poetry    • 

.    The  Mythical  and  the  Real  Sappho    - 

•    Her  Poems    • 

•    Contrast  with  Hebrew  Singers    • 
•    Poet  of  Nature  and  Passion    • 
•    The  First  Woman's  Club    • 

•  vEolian  and  Doric  Poetesses    • 
Honors  to  the  Genius  of  Hellenic  Women 


SAPPHO    AND    THE    FIRST 
WOMAN'S  CLUB 

I 

WOMAN  and  a  poet;  adored  by  men 
and  loved  by  her  own  sex ;  artist, 
singer,  teacher,  leader ;  an  exile  and 
an  immortal — all  this  was  the  Sappho 
who  stood  upon  the  heights  twenty- 
five  centuries  ago  and  sang  the  verses  that  thrilled 
the  heart  of  the  world.  She  lived  in  the  brilliant 
period  when  lyric  poetry  reached  its  zenith  and 
was  its  finest  representative.  Before  her  no  woman 
had  appeared  in  a  distinctly  literary  role,  so  far  as 
we  know.  To-day  she  still  stands  supreme  in  her 
own  field. 

This  "violet-crowned,  pure,  sweetly  smiling 
Sappho,"  who  sang  so  divinely,  and  vanished  so 
theatrically  from  Leucadia's  "  rock  of  woe,"  was 
long  veiled  in  the  mists  of  romance.  The  tragical 

27 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

muse  pictured  in  flowing  draperies,  with  a  crown  of 
laurel  on  her  head  and  a  lyre  in  her  hand,  chanting 
her  swan-song  before  cooling  her  heart  of  flame  in 
the  blue  sea  at  her  feet,  was  as  intangible  to  us  as 
one  of  Fra  Angelico's  angels.  She  looked  out  of  a 
land  of  mystery  and  shadows,  with  nothing  human 
about  her  save  that  she  loved,  and  suffered,  and  died. 
"  Do  thou,  gentle  Love,  place  wings  beneath  me  as 
I  fall,  that  I  may  not  be  the  reproach  of  the  Leuca- 
dian  waves,"  is  her  pathetic  prayer,  and  here  she 
fades  from  our  sight. 

But  it  has  been  fairly  settled  that  this  romantic 
story  was  a  dream ;  that  Phaon  was  only  a  mythi- 
cal Adonis ;  that  Sappho  did  not  follow  him  across 
the  sea,  did  not  die  of  love,  and  never  took  the 
fatal  leap  at  all.  The  sentimental  tourist  who  sighs 
over  her  melancholy  fate  to-day,  as  he  passes  the 
bare  white  cliffs  of  Santa  Maura,  so  long  conse- 
crated to  tragedies  of  love  and  sorrow,  pays  his 
sympathetic  tribute  to  a  phantom.  She  went  to 
Sicily,  it  seems,  but  not  for  love.  It  is  supposed 
that  she  was  exiled.  There  were  political  conspir- 
acies for  which  men  were  banished,  and  she  may 
have  written  revolutionary  songs.  Possibly  she 
held  too  radical  opinions  on  the  privileges  of  her 
sex.  But  all  this  is  the  purest  surmise.  In  any 
case,  her  offense  could  not  have  been  a  grave  one, 
as  she  returned  in  a  few  years  to  Mytilene,  where 
she  was  adored  by  a  fickle  public  as  the  glory  of 

28 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

her  native  city,  and  honored  with  altars  and  temples 
after  her  death.  Her  face  was  stamped  upon  coins 
— "  though  she  was  a  woman,"  said  Aristotle.  The 
outlines  are  clear  and  strong,  with  the  virile  quality 
so  marked  in  most  statues  of  Greek  women.  She 
was  also  represented,  with  Alcaeus,  on  a  vase  of  the 
next  century,  as  not  only  beautiful,  but  tall  and 
stately. 

A  thousand  years  afterward  a  statue  of  her  is 
said  to  have  been  one  of  the  ornaments  of  the 
gymnasium  at  Byzantium.  But  coin  and  bust 
and  statue  give  us  many  faces.  Which  was  the 
real  one?  We  are  more  familiar  with  the  ideal 
Sappho  in  the  modern  portrait  in  which  Alma- 
Tadema  has  so  subtly  caught  the  prophetic  light 
of  her  soul,  her  eager  intellect,  her  unconscious 
grace,  and  the  slumbering  passion  in  her  eloquent 
eyes. 

But  recent  critics  tell  us  that  even  her  beauty 
was  a  fiction  of  the  imagination.  Does  she  not  say 
of  herself,  in  the  burning  lines  of  Ovid,  that  she  was 
brown  and  of  low  stature,  though  her  name  filled 
all  lands?  Or  was  it  the  sweet  humility  of  love 
that  made  her  own  attractions  seem  to  her  slender 
and  insufficient?  She  had  been  dead  six  hundred 
years  or  so  when  Ovid  wrote,  and  his  knowledge 
could  not  have  been  infallible. 

Men  of  her  own  time  called  her  the  "  beautiful 
Sappho,"  the  "  flower  of  the  graces,"  and  Greek 

29 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

standards  of  beauty  included  height  and  stateliness. 
Perhaps  they  were  under  the  magic  spell  of  her 
genius,  and  indulged  in  glowing  figures  of  speech. 
At  all  events,  modern  scholars  are  more  literal,  and 
they  have  mostly  decided  that  she  was  a  small,  dark 
woman,  of  noble  birth,  who  was  early  left  a  widow 
with  one  fair  daughter,  "  Clei's,  the  beloved,  with  a 
form  like  a  golden  flower."  This  was  also  the  name 
of  her  own  mother.  One  of  her  brothers  held  the 
honorable  office  of  cup-bearer;  the  other  went  to 
Egypt,  and,  much  to  the  displeasure  of  his  gifted 
sister,  married  a  woman  of  more  charms  than  discre- 
tion, for  whom  he  had  paid  a  large  ransom.  This 
famous  beauty  of  Naucratis  became  very  rich,  and, 
possibly  by  way  of  atonement  for  her  sins,  made  a 
generous  offering  at  the  temple  of  Delphi.  It  was 
even  said  that  she  immortalized  herself  by  building 
the  third  pyramid ;  but  these  tales,  whether  true  or 
not,  have  been  relegated  to  the  region  of  myths. 
We  learn  from  Sappho  herself  that  she  quarreled 
with  her  brother  on  account  of  this  mesalliance. 
These  are  scant  materials  on  which  to  base  a  life, 
but  they  include  about  all  the  facts  we  have  of 

That  mighty  songstress,  whose  unrivaled  powers 
Weave  for  the  Muse  a  crown  of  deathless  flowers. 

We  do  not  even  know  when  or  where  or  how  she 
died,  though  epitaphs  in  the  strain  of  these  flatter- 
ing and  prosaic  lines  are  numerous. 

30 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

If  her  personality  is  veiled  to  us,  still  less  do  we 
know  what  manner  of  woman  she  was.  The  Attic 
comedians  said  unpleasant  things  about  her  a  cen- 
tury after  she  died,  and  no  one  lived  who  could 
dispute  them.  Unfortunately,  no  infallible  certifi- 
cate of  character  can  be  found  to  protect  a  name 
that  has  been  only  a  historic  memory  two  or  three 
thousand  years.  It  is  certain,  however,  that  ^Eolian 
women  had  an  honored  place  in  society  and  litera- 
ture. They  formed  a  center  of  intellectual  light  in 
which  the  brilliant  Sappho  reigned  supreme,  and  it 
was  no  unusual  thing  to  see  them  at  banquets  and 
festivals  with  men.  A  well-born  Athenian  woman 
would  have  lost  the  rather  illusory  privileges  of  her 
position  by  such  freedom.  She  was  decorously 
ignorant  and  stayed  at  home.  It  was  a  foregone 
conclusion  in  Athens  that  a  woman  who  was  edu- 
cated and  a  poet  could  not  be  respectable,  and  if 
the  facts  were  against  this  conclusion,  so  much  the 
worse  for  the  facts. 

Hence  it  was  quite  natural  that  Sappho,  who  did 
not  go  into  seclusion  or  hide  her  light,  should  be 
decried  by  the  satirists  who  had  never  seen  her. 
A  hundred  years  had  sufficed  to  dim  the  incidents 
of  her  life,  and  left  them  free  to  invent  any  romance 
they  chose.  Her  supposed  love-affairs  were  a  fruit- 
ful theme.  That  men  died  before  she  was  born,  or 
were  born  after  she  died,  were  impertinent  details 
which  were  not  held  to  interfere  in  the  least  with 

31 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

their  tender  relations  toward  her.  It  is  true  that 
she  wrote  with  a  pen  dipped  in  fire,  but  poems  and 
tales  of  passion  are  not  held  even  to-day  as  evidence 
against  the  fair  fame  of  the  author,  whatever  might 
be  thought  of  her  good  taste.  The  Greek  standards 
of  morality  were,  at  best,  far  from  ours,  and  the 
frank  naturalism  of  that  age  would  be  likely  to  shock 
our  sense  of  decorum.  But  there  is  no  indication 
that  Sappho  fell  below  these  standards,  and  there  is 
much  to  show  that  she  rose  above  them.  "  I  love 
delicacy,"  she  writes,  "  and  for  me  love  has  the  sun's 
splendor  and  beauty."  Alcaeus,  her  fellow-poet 
and  rival,  addresses  her  as  "  pure,  sweetly  smiling 
Sappho."  When  he  grows  too  ardent  in  his  love, 
she  rebukes  him  with  gentle  dignity :  "  Hadst  thou 
felt  desire  for  things  good  or  noble,  and  had  not 
thy  tongue  framed  some  evil  speech,  shame  had  not 
filled  thine  eyes,  but  thou  hadst  spoken  honestly 
about  it."  And  why  did  she  feel  her  brother's  dis- 
grace so  keenly  if  her  own  life  was  open  to  reproach  ? 
We  gather  from  herself  that  she  was  simple,  ami- 
able, and  sunny,  with  a  Greek  love  of  life  and  all 
that  pertains  to  it.  "  I  am  not  of  revengeful  tem- 
per," she  says,  "  but  have  a  childlike  mind."  To 
this  naive  confession  she  adds  a  choice  bit  of  wis- 
dom :  "  When  anger  spreads  through  the  breast, 
guard  thy  tongue  from  barking  idly."  She  tells 
her  daughter  not  to  mourn  for  her,  as  "  a  poet's 
home  is  not  a  fit  place  for  lamentation."  In  the 

32 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

spirit  of  her  age  and  race,  she  insists  that  "  death 
is  an  evil;  the  gods  have  so  judged;  had  it  been 
good,  they  would  die." 

Whatever  her  character  and  personal  history 
may  have  been,  we  know  that  she  wrote  perfect 
lyrics  with  the  spark  of  immortality  in  them,  and 
gathered  about  her  in  the  sunny  island  of  Lesbos  a 
circle  of  educated  women  who  devoted  themselves 
to  the  study  of  music,  poetry,  and  the  arts  of 
refined  living.  Her  genius  has  been  recognized  by 
poets,  philosophers,  and  critics,  as  well  as  by 
simpler  people  who  felt  in  her  verse  the  "  touch  of 
nature"  that  "makes  the  whole  world  kin."  She 
was  the  "  divine  Muse  "  of  Plato,  and  shared  the 
lyric  throne  with  Pindar.  Aristotle  quoted  her, 
and  the  austere  Solon  was  so  charmed  with  one  of 
her  odes  that  he  said  he  could  not  die  until  he  had 
learned  it.  Strabo  writes  that  "  at  no  period  on 
record  has  any  woman  been  known  who  compared 
with  her  in  the  least  degree  as  a  poet."  Horace 
and  Catullus  imitated  her,  Ovid  paraphrased  her, 
but  no  one  has  caught  the  essence  of  her  fiery 
spirit.  Plutarch  likens  her  to  the  "  heart  of  a  vol- 
cano." Longinus  called  her  celebrated  ode,  "not 
a  passion,  but  a  congress  of  passions."  Modern 
men  have  tried  to  put  her  golden-winged,  fire- 
tipped  words  into  another  tongue,  and  turned  with 
despair  from  the  task.  It  is  like  trying  to  seize  the 
light  that  blazes  in  the  heart  of  the  diamond,  or 

3  33 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

the  fiery  tints  that  hide  in  the  opal.  Perhaps 
Swinburne  has  best  caught  the  spirit  and  the 
music  of 

Songs  that  move  the  heart  of  the  shaken  heaven, 
Songs  that  break  the  heart  of  the  earth  with  pity. 

But  even  this  exquisite  artist  in  words  says : 
"  Where  Catullus  failed  I  could  not  hope  to 
succeed." 

There  were  nine  volumes  of  her  works  in  the 
days  of  Horace.  To-day  scarcely  more  than  two 
hundred  lines  survive.  Besides  the  two  immortal 
odes,  we  have  only  fragments,  gems  scattered  here 
and  there  through  the  writers  of  antiquity.  To  the 
everlasting  discredit  of  an  ignorant  and  fanatical 
age,  the  fathers  denounced  her,  and  the  Byzantine 
emperors  or  the  ascetic  monks  of  a  later  time 
burned  these  so-called  relics  of  paganism,  to  supply 
their  place  with  books  of  devotion  and  lives  of  the 
saints.  When  the  Hellenic  spirit  woke  again,  after 
a  sleep  of  more  than  a  thousand  years,  it  was  too 
late.  These  poems  had  perished  with  many  monu- 
mental works  of  the  intellect,  and  scholars  thought 
their  lives  well  spent  if  they  found  a  line  or  two 
from  the  lost  treasures. 

But  what  was  the  life  from  which  Sappho  sprang, 
that  she  could  reach  the  topmost  bough  of  fame  at 
a  single  flight?  The  lucid  note,  the  tropical  pas- 
sion, the  musical  flow — these  nature  might  give; 

34 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

but  where  did  she  learn  the  fine  sense  of  propor- 
tion, the  perfection  of  metrical  form,  the  mastery 
of  the  secrets  of  language,  which  placed  her  at  the 
head  of  the  lyric  poets  of  Greece?  The  voices 
which  might  have  told  us  are  silent.  Sparta  was 
making  heroic  men  and  women,  not  literature. 
Athens  was  struggling  through  her  stormy  youth, 
and  pluming  her  wings  for  the  highest  flight  of  all. 
The  great  Hebrew  poetry  was  contemporary  with 
Sappho,  but  she  shows  no  trace  of  its  influence.  If 
she  ever  saw  or  heard  it,  her  spirit  was  utterly  alien 
to  it.  Still  less  had  she  in  common  with  the  in- 
spired woman  who  led  the  armies  of  Israel  to  victory, 
six  or  seven  centuries  before,  and  chanted  in  stately 
measure  the  immortal  song  of  their  triumphs.  It 
may  be  noted  here  that  it  was  a  woman  who  fired 
the  hearts  of  these  wandering  people  to  brave  deeds, 
when  men  drew  back,  timid  and  disheartened ;  it 
was  a  woman  who  went  before  them  into  battle ; 
and  it  was  a  woman  who  broke  into  that  impas- 
sioned poem  which  has  come  down  to  us  across  the 
ages  as  one  of  the  great  martial  hymns  of  the  world. 
But  Deborah,  the  soldier,  poet,  prophetess,  judge, 
and  minstrel,  never  walked  in  the  flowery  paths  of 
beauty  and  love.  Her  virile  soul  rose  on  the  wings 
of  a  sublime  faith,  far  above  the  things  of  sense. 
Behind  that  chorus  of  joy  and  exultation  lay  the 
long-baffled  hopes,  aspirations,  and  energies  of  an 
oppressed  people,  but  it  celebrated  the  apotheosis 

35 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

of  force.  It  was  a  barbaric  song,  wild  and  revenge- 
ful even  in  its  splendid  imagery  and  patriotic  fervor. 
Miriam  took  her  timbrel,  and  sang  in  the  same 
strain  of  power  and  majesty,  inspired  by  the  same 
soaring  imagination.  But  we  find  no  touch  of  a 
woman's  pity  or  tenderness  in  these  paeans  of  vic- 
tory. Their  note  is  strong  and  exultant,  alive  with 
the  lofty  enthusiasm  of  a  religious  race  in  which  the 
passion  for  art  and  beauty  was  not  yet  born.  Sap- 
pho had  caught  nothing  from  these  singers  of  an 
earlier  time.  She  does  not  live  in  the  bracing  air 
of  great  ideals,  nor  does  she  dwell  upon  any  vexed 
moral  problems,  after  the  manner  of  later  poets.  She 
is  simply  human,  and  strikes  a  personal  note,  the 
charm  of  which  is  unfailing,  and  will  be  fresh  as  long 
as  flowers  bloom,  or  men  and  women  live  and  love. 
This  sweet-voiced  singer  seems  to  have  risen 
full-fledged  with  the  dawn,  and  her  notes  were 
liquid  and  clear  as  the  song  of  the  lark  that  soars 
out  of  the  morning  mists,  and  makes  the  sky  vocal 
with  melody.  The  freshness  of  the  woods  and  the 
wild  freedom  of  the  air  are  in  them.  She  loves 
the  flowers,  the  running  streams,  the  silver  moon, 
the  "  golden-sandaled  dawn,"  the  "  dear,  glad  angel 
of  the  spring,  the  nightingale."  Hesperus,  fairest 
of  stars,  "  brings  all  that  bright  morning  scattered," 
and  smiles  on  "  dark-eyed  sleep,  child  of  night." 
Again  she  says,  "  The  stars  about  the  fair  moon 
hide  their  bright  faces  when  she  lights  up  all  the 

36 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

earth  with  silver."  Was  it  the  music  of  her  voice 
that  the  doves  heard  "  when  their  hearts  turned 
cold  and  they  dropped  their  wings  "  ?  She  sings 
the  praise  of  the  purple  hyacinth,  the  blushing 
apple-blossom,  and  the  pale  Lesbian  rose,  which 
she  loves  best  of  all.  Dica  is  bidden  to  twine 
wreaths,  "  for  even  the  blessed  Graces  look  kindlier 
on  a  flowery  sacrifice,  and  turn  their  faces  from 
those  who  lack  garlands."  In  the  garden  of  the 
nymphs,  "  the  cool  water  gurgles  through  apple- 
boughs,  and  slumber  streams  from  quivering  leaves." 
To  this  passionate  love  of  nature,  so  vividly  told 
in  rare  and  exquisite  figures  and  in  phrases  "  shot 
with  a  thousand  hues,"  she  adds  a  sensibility  that 
responds  to  every  breath  that  passes.  "  I  flutter 
like  a  child  after  her  mother,"  is  her  cry.  She 
likens  a  bird  to  a  flower  that  grows  in  a  garden  and 
has  nothing  to  fear  from  the  storms.  A  woman 
alone  is  like  a  wild  flower  which  no  one  takes  care 
of.  She  touches  every  phase  of  love  from  the 
divine  tenderness  of  girlhood  to  the  wild  passion 
that  shakes  the  soul,  "  a  wind  on  the  mountains 
falling  on  oaks."  Her  words  flash  and  burn  with 
the  heart-consuming  fire  of  her  race.  The  lines  in 
which  she  entreats  the  "  star-throned  Aphrodite  " 
to  have  pity  on  her  anguish,  glow  with  a  white 
heat.  The  swift-winged  doves  had  brought  the 
fickle  goddess  once  before  to  soothe  her  pain  with 
sweet  promises  and  an  immortal  smile.  Will  she 

37 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

not  come  again  and  lift  the  ache  from  her  tortured 
soul,  and  give  her  what  she  asks  ? 

The  intensity  of  passion  reaches  its  climax  in  the 
ode  to  Anactoria.  Simple  as  it  is,  the  vocabulary 
of  "  bitter-sweet  "  emotion  is  exhausted.  In  her 
most  impassioned  verses,  our  own  Mrs.  Browning 
does  not  quite  forget  to  reflect  about  her  love. 
She  sets  it  forth  in  subtly  woven  thoughts,  and  lets 
it  filter  through  her  mind  until  it  takes  the  color  of 
it.  Sappho  sings  of  passion  pure  and  artless.  She 
does  not  think  about  it,  she  does  not  analyze  it.  It 
possesses  her  heart  and  imagination,  and  she  tells 
it  so  simply,  so  sincerely,  and  so  truly,  that  the 
familiar  story  never  loses  its  charm.  She  sang  in 
the  childhood  of  the  world,  when  people  felt  more 
than  they  thought,  when  love  was  a  sensation,  a  joy, 
a  passion,  a  pain,  not  a  sentiment.  If  she  did  not 
spiritualize  her  theme,  she  purified  it  of  the  coarse- 
ness which  made  the  love-songs  of  men,  before  and 
afterward,  unfit  for  a  delicate  ear.  This  first  touch 
of  a  woman  in  literature  was  to  refine  it,  though  it 
was  many  centuries  before  she  had  the  power  to 
lead  men  to  take  love  from  the  exclusive  domain 
of  the  senses  and  give  it  a  soul. 


II 

BUT  it  is  not  alone  as  a  singer  that  Sappho  has 
come  down  to  us.     She  was  the  leader  of  an  intel- 

38 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

lectual  movement  among  women  that  was  without 
a  parallel  in  classic  times.  We  may  greet  her  as 
not  only  the  first  of  woman  poets,  but  as  the 
founder  of  the  first  "  woman's  club  "  known  to  us. 
It  is  not  certain  that  it  had  either  a  constitution  or 
by-laws,  and  it  discussed  poetry  and  esthetics  instead 
of  science  and  social  economics.  But  the  measure 
of  the  intellect  is  not  so  much  what  we  discuss  as 
the  quality  of  thought  we  bring  into  the  discussion. 
It  is  easy  enough  to  talk  platitudes  about  literature 
or  philosophy,  and  not  so  easy  as  one  might  imagine 
to  talk  wisely  and  well  about  poetry,  or  manners, 
or  the  art  of  living;  and  it  is  easier  to  do  any  of 
these  things  than  it  is  to  write  what  is  worth  talk- 
ing about.  The  women  who  came  to  Sappho  from 
the  isles  of  the  JEgean  and  the  far  hills  of  Greece 
seem  to  have  been  more  intent  upon  writing  poems 
than  talking  about  them.  There  is  no  trace  of 
brilliant  conversation,  or  critical  papers,  or  gathered 
sheaves  of  the  knowledge  that  comes  so  freely  under 
our  own  hand.  Unfortunately,  there  was  no  secre- 
tary in  this  primitive  club  to  take  notes  for  poster- 
ity, or,  if  there  was,  the  records  have  been  lost. 
We  know  little  of  its  sayings,  though  there  are 
scattered  traces  of  its  doings.  A  few  faint  echoes 
have  come  to  us  across  the  centuries, — a  verse,  a 
line,  a  trait,  a  word,  a  heart-cry, — and  that  is  all. 
Even  these  give  us  glimpses  of  its  personal  rather 
than  of  its  intellectual  side.  Of  the  quality  of  its 

39 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

work  we  cannot  judge,  as  there  is  little  of  it  left. 
That  it  was  thought  worthy  of  praise  in  its  day, 
with  Sappho  as  a  standard,  proves  at  least  a  high 
degree  of  merit.  She  was  musician  as  well  as  poet, 
and  trained  many  of  the  maidens  for  singing  in 
sacred  festivals,  as  well  as  in  the  arts  of  poetry  and 
manners.  When  they  married,  she  wrote  their 
bridal  odes.  These  she  sang  with  the  lyre,  and 
one  of  her  minor  claims  to  fame  was  her  invention 
of  the  plectrum,  which  brought  out  the  full 
resources  of  this  instrument.  For  Timas,  who  died 
unmarried,  she  wrote  a  touching  elegy,  which  was 
sung  at  her  tomb  by  the  maidens,  who  cut  off  their 
curls  as  a  token  of  sorrow. 

The  most  gifted  of  Sappho's  friends  was  Erinna, 
who  died  at  nineteen,  leaving  among  other  things 
a  poem  of  three  hundred  verses,  which  was  said  to 
deserve  a  place  beside  the  epics  of  Homer.  She 
sang  of  the  sorrows  of  a  maiden  whose  mother 
compelled  her  to  spin  when  she  wished  to  serve 
the  Muses.  There  is  also  a  tradition  that  she  wrote 
an  epitaph  for  a  companion  of  "  birth  and  lineage 
high,"  who  died  on  her  wedding  day,  and  "  changed 
bridal  songs  to  sound  of  sob  and  tear."  She  was 
thought  to  surpass  her  teacher  in  hexameters. 
Sappho  reproved  her  for  being  so  scornful,  and  this 
is  all  the  trait  we  have  of  this  precocious  child  of 
genius,  who  preferred  poetry  to  spinning.  Her 
own  epitaph  speaks  for  itself : 

40 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

These  are  Erinna's  songs ;  how  sweet,  though  slight ! 
For  she  was  but  a  girl  of  nineteen  years. 
Yet  stronger  far  than  what  most  men  can  write : 
Had  death  delayed,  whose  fame  had  equaled  hers? 

The  only  thing  about  Andromeda  of  which  we 
are  sure  is  that  she  dressed  badly.  "  What  woman 
ever  charmed  thy  mind  who  wore  a  graceless  dress, 
or  did  not  know  how  to  draw  her  garments  about 
her  ankles  ?  "  says  Sappho  to  this  formidable  rival 
who  stole  away  from  her  the  fickle  heart  of  Atthis. 
Of  the  brilliant  Gorgo  she  grew  tired.  It  is  sup- 
posed that  these  two  were  at  the  head  of  other 
clubs  or  schools.  Damophyla  wrote  a  hymn  to 
Artemis,  the  patron  goddess  of  pure-souled  maid- 
ens, which  was  modeled  after  Sappho  and  had 
great  praise  in  its  day,  but  no  fragment  of  it  is  left. 

"  The  fair-haired  Lesbian,"  so  famed  as  the  poet 
of  nature  and  passion,  was  not  without  a  wise  phi- 
losophy of  life,  and  she  assumes  the  role  of  mentor 
with  pitiless  candor.  "  He  who  is  fair  to  look  upon 
is  good,  and  he  who  is  good  will  soon  be  fair,"  is 
her  motto ;  but  she  tells  Mnasidica  that  her  "  gloomy 
temper  spoils  her,  though  she  has  a  more  beautiful 
form  than  the  tender  Gyrinna."  Her  house  is 
devoted  to  the  service  of  the  Muses  and  must  be 
cheerful,  but  she  shuts  out  of  an  honorable  immor- 
tality those  who  prefer  worldly  fortune  to  the  plea- 
sures of  the  intellect.  To  a  rich  woman  without 
education  she  says :  "  Where  thou  diest  there  wilt 

41 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

thou  lie,  and  no  one  will  remember  thy  name  in 
times  to  come,  because  thou  hast  no  share  in  the 
roses  of  Pieria.  Inglorious  wilt  thou  wander  about 
in  Hades  and  flit  among  its  dark  shades."  She 
does  not  forget  the  finer  graces  of  character,  and 
evidently  realizes  the  insidious  fascination  of  mate- 
rial things.  A  moralist  of  to-day  might  be  expected 
to  tell  us  that  "  wealth  without  virtue  is  a  dangerous 
guest,"  but  we  are  not  apt  to  credit  the  gifted 
singers  of  the  ancient  world  with  so  much  ethical 
insight,  least  of  all  the  women  of  a  sensuous  and 
passionate  race,  which  loved  before  all  things 
beauty  and  the  pleasures  of  life. 

These  few  touches  of  wisdom,  satire,  and  criti- 
cism, relieved  by  the  love  of  Sappho  for  the  friends 
and  pupils  to  whom  she  is  a  model,  an  adviser,  and 
an  inspiration,  throw  a  passing  side-light  on  a  group 
of  clever  women  who  flit  like  phantoms  across  the 
pages  of  history,  most  of  them  names  and  nothing 
more.  They  are  of  interest  in  showing  us  that  the 
women  of  ages  ago  had  the  same  aspirations  that 
we  have  to-day,  together  with  the  same  faults,  the 
same  virtues,  and  the  same  griefs,  though  they  had 
not  learned  to  moralize  their  sensations  or  intellec- 
tualize  their  passions.  They  show  us,  too,  another 
phase  of  the  elusive  being  who  dazzled  the  world 
in  its  youth,  leaving  a  few  records  traced  in  flame, 
and  charged  with  an  ever-baffling  secret  for  all 
coming  generations. 

42 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

"  Men,  I  think,  will  remember  us  hereafter,"  she 
says  with  subtle  foresight,  a  line  that  Swinburne 
has  so  gracefully  expanded  in  words  taken  in  part 
from  her  own  lips  : 

I,  Sappho,  shall  be  one  with  all  these  things, 
With  all  high  things  forever;  and  my  face 
Seen  once,  my  songs  once  heard  in  a  strange  place, 
Cleave  to  men's  lives,  and  waste  the  days  thereof 
With  gladness  and  much  sadness  and  long  love. 

Ill 

THE  little  coterie  that  wrote  and  talked  and 
worked  in  the  direction  of  finer  ideals  of  life  and 
manners,  under  the  influence  of  the  first  woman 
poet  of  the  world,  has  made  the  island  of  Lesbos, 
with  its  varying  charm  of  sea  and  sky,  and  beauti- 
ful gardens,  and  singing  birds,  and  sparkling  foun- 
tains, and  white  cliffs  outlined  like  sculpture  in  the 
crystalline  air,  luminous  for  all  time.  Of  its  four 
more  or  less  famous  poets,  three  were  women,  but 
Sappho  has  overshadowed  all  the  rest.  The  very 
atmosphere  woke  the  imagination,  and  made  their 
hearts  sing  aloud  with  love  and  joy,  varied  by  an 
occasional  note  of  sorrow  and  pain.  They  came 
from  all  lands,  these  gifted  maidens,  to  sit  at  the 
feet  of  Sappho,  and  to  carry  back  to  their  distant 
homes  the  spirit  of  poesy  and  song  which  inspired 
so  many  Hellenic  women  to  brave  deeds  as  well  as 
to  tender  and  heroic  words.  But  the  passion  of 

43 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

southern  seas  became  a  religious  enthusiasm  in  the 
sheltered  and  somber  plains  of  Boeotia,  where  the 
lives  of  women  had  been  so  bare  and  hard,  and 
Hesiod  with  his  fellow-poets  had  given  them  such 
cold  consolation.  The  songs  of  love  were  turned  to 
processional  hymns  chanted  by  white-robed  virgins 
as  they  brought  offerings  to  the  shrines  of  their  gods. 
It  may  have  been  the  fame  of  Sappho  that  fired 
the  genius  of  Myrtis  and  Corinna.  Possibly  some 
dark-eyed  maiden  had  come  back  from  Lesbos  to 
spread  the  cult  of  knowledge  and  beauty,  to  found 
other  esthetic  clubs  which  should  give  a  new 
impulse  to  women's  lives.  But  when  we  try  to 
give  a  living  form  to  these  famous  poets,  we  grasp 
at  shadows.  We  simply  know  that  they  lived  and 
sang  and  had  their  little  day  of  glory,  with  grand 
tombs  at  the  end,  and  statues  in  various  parts  of 
Greece.  They  were  teachers  of  Pindar,  and 
Corinna  is  said  to  have  defeated  him  five  times  in 
poetic  contests  at  Thebes.  Several  centuries  later 
there  was  still  at  Tanagra  a  picture  representing 
her  in  the  act  of  binding  a  fillet  about  her  beautiful 
head,  probably  in  token  of  these  victories.  Five 
crowns  on  her  tomb  also  told  the  story.  She  was 
the  friend  and  critic  of  the  great  lyric  poet,  but  he 
said  some  unkind  things  of  his  successful  rival,  and 
insisted  that  the  prize  was  due  to  her  beauty  rather 
than  her  genius.  In  spite  of  this,  he  went  to  her 
for  counsel.  She  had  advised  him  to  use  the  Greek 

44 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

myths  in  his  poems,  and  he  did  it  so  lavishly  that 
she  wittily  told  him  to  "  sow  with  the  hand  and  not 
pour  out  of  a  sack."  She  was  not  quite  generous, 
however,  to  her  other  friend,  who  also  won  a  prize 
in  the  same  manner.  She  says,  "  I  blame  the  clear- 
toned  Myrtis  that  she,  a  woman  born,  should  enter 
the  lists  with  Pindar."  Why  it  was  not  proper  for 
a  sister  poet  who  had  taught  both  of  them  to  do 
what  she  did  herself,  is  not  clear.  She  was  called 
the  first  of  the  nine  lyrical  muses,  who  were  the 
earthly  counterparts  of  the  "  celestial  nine."  Myrtis 
was  another.  As  the  immortal  Maids  who  dwelt  on 
the  slopes  of  Helicon  were  apt  to  visit  their  rivals  with 
summary  vengeance  of  much  more  serious  character, 
perhaps  their  mortal  representatives  ought  to  be  for- 
given for  a  shade  of  jealousy  so  delicately  implied. 

Corinna  left  five  books  of  poems,  but  small  trace 
of  them  remains.  Many  of  her  verses  were  sung 
by  maidens  at  religious  festivals.  Her  modest 
niche  in  the  temple  of  fame  she  owes  mainly  to  her 
victories  over  Pindar,  though  she  was  second  only 
to  Sappho.  Why  her  work,  which  was  crowned 
with  so  many  laurels,  has  not  lived  beside  his,  is 
one  of  the  mysteries  of  buried  ages.  Perhaps  it 
was  because  she  made  use  of  purely  local  legends 
and  the  local  dialect,  to  which  many  thought  she 
owed  her  success  in  her  own  day. 

This  wave  of  feminine  genius  that  passed  over 
the  hills  and  ralleys  of  Greece  spent  itself  in  little 

45 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

more  than  a  century  on  Doric  soil.  The  last  of 
the  lyrical  muses  were  Praxilla  and  Telesilla.  We 
have  a  faint  glimpse  of  the  first  at  Sicyon,  where 
she  lived,  and  ancient  critics  gave  her  a  place  by 
the  side  of  Anacreon.  She  drew  her  inspiration 
largely  from  mythology,  and  sang  successfully  on 
that  favorite  theme  of  poetic  maidens,  the  death  of 
Adonis.  In  the  most  critical  age  of  Greece  she 
was  honored  with  a  statue  by  Lysippus,  which  may 
be  taken  as  sufficient  proof  that  she  was  much 
more  than  a  writer  of  sentimental  verses. 

More  noted  was  Telesilla,  the  poet  and  heroine 
of  Argos,  an  antique  Joan  of  Arc,  whose  exaltation 
took  a  poetic  form  instead  of  a  religious  one.  A 
curious  little  story,  mythical  or  otherwise,  is  related 
of  her.  She  was  very  ill  and  consulted  the  oracle, 
which  told  her  to  devote  herself  to  the  Muses. 
This  species  of  mind-cure  proved  more  effective 
than  medicine,  and  she  recovered  under  the  magic 
of  music  and  poetry.  But  she  had  the  spirit  of  an 
Amazon  as  well  as  the  genius  of  a  poet.  At  a 
crisis  in  the  war  with  Sparta,  she  armed  the  women, 
and  manned  the  walls  with  slaves  too  young  or  too 
old  to  fight.  The  Spartans  thought  it  discreditable 
to  kill  the  women,  and  disgraceful  to  be  beaten  by 
them,  so  they  retreated.  The  event  was  commem- 
orated by  an  annual  festival  at  which  men  appeared 
in  feminine  attire.  Many  centuries  afterward  a 
statue  of  Telesilla  was  still  standing  on  a  pillar  in 

46 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

front  of  the  temple  of  Aphrodite  at  Argos.  She 
held  in  her  hand  a  helmet  which  she  was  about  to 
put  on  her  head,  and  several  volumes  of  poetry 
were  lying  at  her  feet.  Among  her  themes  were 
the  fated  daughters  of  the  weeping  Niobe ;  she  also 
wrote  famous  hymns  to  Artemis  and  Apollo.  In  spite 
of  her  allegiance  to  the  Muses,  she  was  more  con- 
spicuous for  her  service  to  Ares,  who  was  henceforth 
worshiped  at  Argos  as  the  patron  deity  of  women. 
The  poetry  of  the  ^Eolians  was  largely  inspired 
by  love,  or  a  religion  of  beauty.  But  the  Doric 
genius  was  not  a  lyrical  one,  and  the  passionate 
personal  note  which  made  the  charm  of  Sappho 
and  her  contemporaries  was  lost  in  stirring  martial 
strains.  Women  ceased  to  write  or  to  be  known 
at  all  in  literature  until  a  later  time,  when  they 
dipped  into  philosophy  a  little,  especially  in  the 
Dorian  colonies,  where  they  were  educated  and 
held  in  great  consideration.  Pythagoras  had  many 
feminine  followers,  and  his  school  at  Crotona  was 
continued  after  his  death  by  his  wife  Theano  and  a 
daughter  who  had  assisted  him.  But  most  of  them 
live,  if  at  all,  only  as  names,  or  in  the  reflected  light 
of  famous  men  whose  disciples  they  were. 

IV 

AT  no   other  time  in  the  history  of  the  world  has 
the   poetry  of  women  reached  the   height  or  the 

47 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

honor  it  attained  in  this  first  flowering  of  their 
intellect  and  imagination.  One  may  doubtless  take 
with  a  shade  of  reservation  the  "  female  Homers," 
like  Anyta,  of  whom  we  have  only  a  few  epigrams, 
but  there  is  a  dim  and  rather  vague  tradition  of 
seventy-six  women  poets  in  a  scattered  and  by  no 
means  large  population.  In  the  revival  of  poetry 
during  the  Renaissance,  there  were  about  sixty, 
and  none  of  them  -had  the  same  quality  of  perfec- 
tion which  we  find  in  Sappho.  No  one  claims  that 
we  have  equaled  her  to-day  on  her  own  ground, 
however  superior  our  achievements  may  be  in  other 
directions. 

That  the  ALolian  women  did  so  much  with  so 
little,  and  in  spite  of  their  limited  advantages,  is 
the  best  proof  of  their  inborn  gifts.  Mediocre 
talents  do  not  thrive  in  so  adverse  a  soil,  though 
this  outburst  of  mental  vigor  belongs  to  a  time 
when  women  had  a  degree  of  freedom  and  honor 
which  for  some  reason  they  lost  in  the  golden  age 
of  Athens.  But  the  books  they  wrote  were  not 
printed,  the  manuscript  copies  were  limited,  most 
of  them  were  lost  with  other  classic  works,  and  the 
few  that  escaped  the  pitiless  fingers  of  time  were 
destroyed  by  fanatics  and  iconoclasts.  Yet  one 
woman  shines  across  twenty-five  centuries  as  a  star 
of  the  first  magnitude,  and  we  have  fading  glimpses 
of  others  who  received  honors  due  only  to  genius, 
or  to  talent  of  the  first  order.  They  were  not 

48 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

judged  apart  as  women,  for  they  have  come  down 
to  us  as  peers  of  great  men.  The  divine  gift  of 
genius  was  rare  then,  as  now  and  always,  but  even 
in  women  it  did  not  lack  recognition.  To  prove 
the  gift  and  exact  the  homage,  perhaps  in  any  age, 
we  have  simply  to  show  the  fruit,  except  in  a  deca- 
dence, when  the  finest  fruit  loses  its  savor  for  cor- 
rupted tastes.  If  the  number  who  wrote  for 
immortality  was  small,  it  must  be  remembered  that 
probably  there  were  not  enough  people  in  all 
Greece  to  make  a  good-sized  modern  city. 

The  statues  that  were  reared  to  these  women 
have  long  since  vanished  from  the  classic  hills  they 
graced,  and  their  voices  are  heard  only  in  the 
faintest  of  musical  echoes.  Most  of  them  have 
fallen  into  eternal  silence.  That  there  were  many 
others  devoted  to  things  of  the  intellect,  but 
unknown  to  fame,  it  is  fair  to  presume,  as  we  see 
only  those  who  look  back  upon  us  from  the  shining 
peaks  of  that  far  past,  while  the  dark  waters  of 
oblivion  have  settled  over  the  possible  treasures  of 
its  sunny  slopes  and  fragrant  valleys.  How  many 
of  our  own  women,  with  their  myriads  of  books, 
lectures,  and  clubs,  their  university  courses,  their 
versatile  Intellects,  and  their  unlimited  freedom,  are 
likely  to  be  quoted  two  or  three  thousand  years 
hence,  and  set  in  the  firmament  to  live  forever? 

To  be  sure,  we  stand  upon  a  higher  moral  and 
social  level,  we  have  more  knowledge,  our  field  of 
4  49 


SAPPHO  AND  THE  FIRST  WOMAN'S  CLUB 

action  is  broader,  our  ideals  of  virtue  are  higher, 
and  we  have  privileges  and  pleasures  of  which  they 
never  dreamed.  It  is  quite  impossible  to  put  our- 
selves on  the  simple  plane  of  these  women.  The 
world  has  grown  old  and  sophisticated;  we  have 
learned  to  classify  ourselves,  to  choose  our  fields  of 
knowledge,  to  consecrate  our  talents  to  what  we 
call  larger  uses.  Perhaps  we  never  again  can  reach 
the  lyrical  heights  of  these  children  of  passion,  ima- 
gination, and  song.  Our  triumphs  are  of  another 
sort.  But  whatever  intellectual  distinctions  we 
may  attain,  it  is  to  this  youth  of  the  world  that  we 
must  look  for  the  apotheosis  of  love  and  beauty. 

It  is  needless  to  ask  why  we  can  point  to  no 
second  Sappho.  There  is  but  one  Parthenon. 
Broken  and  crumbling,  it  stands  in  its  white  majesty 
forever  alone.  The  Hellenic  spirit  is  as  dead  as 
the  gods  of  Olympus. 


GLIMPSES   OF    THE    SPARTAN 
WOMAN 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE   SPARTAN 

WOMAN 

X 

Homeric  and  Spartan  Types  Compared 

•    Training  of  the  Spartan  Woman    • 

Her  Education  Superior  to  that  of  Men 

«    Her  Executive  Talent    • 

•    Her  Heroism    • 

Agesistrata    •    Cratesiclea    •    Chelonis 
•    The  Puritans  of  the  Classic  World    • 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE    SPARTAN   WOMAN 


HE  strength  and  vigor  of  the  Homeric 
types  reappear  in  the  Spartan  woman, 
but  without  their  sweetness  and 
charm.  Was  this  charm  the  subtle 
touch  of  the  poet's  imagination,  or 
was  it  due  in  part  to  the  setting  that  brought  into 
relief  their  most  lovable  qualities?  Their  central 
point  of  character  was  a  domestic  one,  and  round 
this  clustered  all  the  gentler  virtues.  The  central 
trait  of  the  Spartan  woman  was  patriotism,  and  to 
this  even  the  tenderest  affections  were  subordinate. 
The  colder  light  of  history  shows  them  in  outlines 
that  are  hard  and  stern.  The  fine  symmetry  of  an 
ideal  womanhood  was  lost  in  the  excess  of  a  single 
virtue  that  overshadowed  all  the  others.  Some 
one  tells  a  mother  who  is  waiting  for  tidings  of  a 
battle  that  her  five  sons  have  perished.  "  You 
contemptible  slave,"  she  replies,  "  that  is  not  what 

53 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   SPARTAN   WOMAN 

I  wish  to  know.  How  fares  my  country?"  On 
learning  that  it  was  victorious,  she  says,  "  Willingly 
then  do  I  hear  of  the  death  of  my  sons."  "  A 
glorious  fate!"  exclaims  another,  to  a  friend  who 
offered  her  sympathy  for  the  loss  of  her  boy  in 
war.  "  Did  I  not  bear  him  that  he  might  die  for 
Sparta?  "  Here  lay  the  first  and  last  duty  of  these 
women.  Natural  affection,  private  interest,  inclina- 
tion, everything  we  deem  sacred,  even  to  life,  was 
at  the  bidding  of  the  State,  which  strangled  itself 
and  its  citizens  with  petty  tyrannies  in  the  name  of 
liberty.  They  were  dedicated  to  the  State,  ordered 
to  rear  men  for  the  State,  sacrificed  to  the  State. 
This  destiny  they  accepted  without  a  murmur,  find- 
ing in  it  their  glory  and  their  pride. 

Even  as  children  the  Spartan  women  caught  the 
spirit  of  civic  devotion,  which  was  to  be  the  domi- 
nant one  in  their  lives.  An  anecdote  in  point  is 
told  of  the  little  Gorgo,  who  was  afterward  the  wife 
of  the  brave  Leonidas.  When  a  child  of  eight 
years,  she  happened  to  be  in  the  room  one  day 
while  a  messenger  was  trying  to  bribe  her  father  to 
aid  the  Persians.  He  offered  ten  talents  at  first, 
and  gradually  raised  the  sum  until  the  child, 
suspecting  danger,  said:  "Go  away,  father;  this 
stranger  will  corrupt  you."  It  is  pleasant  to  record 
that  her  advice  was  laughingly  taken.  When  she 
was  grown  to  womanhood,  she  rendered  great  ser- 
vice to  her  country,  and  proved  her  own  sagacity, 

54 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE   SPARTAN   WOMAN 

by  finding  a  message  of  vital  concern  so  concealed 
in  a  wax  tablet  that  no  one  had  suspected  it. 
"  You  Lacedaemonians  are  the  only  women  in  the 
world  to  rule  men,"  said  a  foreigner  to  her.  "  We 
are  the  only  women  who  bring  forth  men,"  was 
the  ready  reply.  When  her  distinguished  husband 
went  away  to  his  last  battle,  with  forebodings  of 
his  fate,  he  could  find  no  better  parting  words 
than  these:  "Marry  nobly  and  bear  brave  sons." 
We  might  regard  the  consolation  as  questionable, 
but  it  shows  the  inexorable  tyranny  of  a  single 
idea. 

It  was  from  Sparta  that  the  beautiful  Helen 
sailed  away  on  that  fateful  day  which  changed  the 
face  of  the  primitive  world,  and  the  tradition  of  her 
loveliness  was  not  lost.  The  Spartan  women  were 
still  noted  for  beauty  of  a  healthy,  vigorous,  luxuri- 
ant sort,  but  it  seems  to  have  lacked  the  distinctly 
feminine  and  magical  quality  that  raised  Helen  to 
the  ranks  of  the  goddesses.  They  were  of  firmer 
mold  and  less  sensuous  type.  Aphrodite  fared 
badly  among  the  sturdy  people  in  the  valley  of  the 
Eurotas.  She  had  but  one  temple,  and  even  there 
she  sat  armed  with  a  sword  and  veiled,  with  ignomin- 
ious fetters  on  her  feet.  Artemis,  active,  fleet  of 
foot,  and  strong,  held  the  place  of  honor.  Delicacy 
and  tenderness  were  marks  of  inferiority  which 
Spartan  training  tended  to  efface.  These  brave, 
decided,  clear-headed,  and  efficient  women  had 

55 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   SPARTAN   WOMAN 

abundant  heroism,  but  little  of  the  warm,  sympa- 
thetic temperament  which  we  call  womanly  and  they 
called  weak.  This  goes  far  to  prove  that,  within 
certain  limits,  the  accepted  standard  of  what  is 
womanly,  and  what  is  not,  depends  largely  upon 
custom,  or  fashion,  or  expediency,  and  suggests 
some  unpleasant  possibilities  if  the  race  of  women 
should  be  fully  educated  to  the  hard  uses  and  ma- 
terial ideals  of  a  purely  industrial  or  commercial 
life,  as  outlined  in  the  brains  of  many  modern  social 
reformers.  Such  uses  may  be  a  present  necessity 
rather  than  a  choice,  but  whether  the  gain  in  strength 
and  independence  will  compensate  for  the  inevitable 
loss  of  many  gentler  qualities  is  one  of  the  problems 
for  the  future  to  solve.  In  any  case,  the  old  theory 
of  a  divine  law  that  has  fixed  the  nature  as  well  as 
the  status  of  women  in  the  economy  of  creation,  is 
likely  to  be  seriously  disturbed,  as  it  was  in  the 
Sparta  of  old.  In  the  martial  chorus  that  called 
itself  the  song  of  liberty,  the  musical,  love-inspired 
voices  of  women  were  lost.  It  celebrated  the  apo- 
theosis of  force,  which  has  always  been  fatal  to  the 
finer  and  more  spiritual  gifts  of  the  less  militant 
sex.  But  for  once  it  served  them  indirectly  a  good 
turn,  in  spite  of  certain  hardening  effects  upon  the 
character  and  manners.  This  is  quite  evident  when 
we  compare  the  Doric  woman  with  the  secluded 
Athenian  of  softer  ways  but  with  no  outlet  for  her 
intelligence,  and  apparently  no  influence. 

56 


GLIMPSES   OF   THE   SPARTAN   WOMAN 

Fortunately  the  supreme  aim  of  the  founders  of 
Sparta  was  one  which  they  were  wise  enough  to 
know  could  not  be  attained  without  a  larger  free- 
dom and  development  for  women.  It  was  a  one- 
sided training  that  was  given  them,  and  the  freedom 
was  not  altogether  satisfactory  from  our  point  of 
view,  if  indeed  we  should  call  it  freedom  at  all. 
But  as  an  important  factor  in  the  State  they  were 
duly  honored.  It  was  an  accepted  theory  that 
brave  and  vigorous  men  must  spring  from  brave 
and  vigorous  women,  so  the  aim  of  all  their  disci- 
pline was  to  make  strong  and  healthy  mothers. 
No  delicate  girl  was  allowed  to  marry,  for  the  same 
reason  that  no  sickly  child  was  allowed  to  live.  To 
insure  the  vitality  of  the  race  and  the  consequent 
glory  of  the  State,  girls  were  trained  with  boys  in 
athletic  exercises.  They  ran,  wrestled,  and  boxed 
with  them  in  public, — sometimes  with  no  veil  but 
their  modesty, — danced  with  them  at  festivals,  and 
marched  freely  with  them  in  religious  processions. 
All  this  naturally  gave  them  masculine  manners, 
and  inevitably  led  to  a  spirit  of  independence  and 
a  virile  character.  The  more  refined  Athenians 
criticized  them  and  looked  upon  them  much  as  the 
conventional  Parisian  of  to-day,  who  will  not  send 
a  daughter  across  the  street  without  a  chaperon, 
looks  upon  the  irrepressible  American  girl  of  the 
frontier.  Contrary  also  to  the  usual  fashion,  it 
was  the  maidens  who  had  the  privilege  of  living  in 

57 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE    SPARTAN    WOMAN 

the  public   view.     They   did   not    even   veil    their 
faces,  as  the  married  women  did. 

With  all  their  mannish  tendencies,  the  Spartan 
women  are  said  to  have  been  noted  for  purity  of 
character.  It  is  safe  perhaps  to  take  with  a  degree 
of  reservation  the  assertion  that  immorality  accord- 
ing to  their  standards  was  practically  unknown. 
We  might  at  least  justly  find  fault  with  the  stan- 
dards, and  object  to  the  material  view  taken  of  rela- 
tions which  we  are  in  the  habit  of  investing  with  a 
delicate  halo  of  romance.  It  was  an  affair  of  the 
State,  however,  rather  than  of  the  individual,  and 
it  is  a  nice  point  to  decide  as  to  the  morality  of 
women  who  accepted  from  necessity  certain  pre- 
scribed modes  of  living  in  which  they  had  no  choice. 
So  peculiar  were  the  general  notions  of  decorum 
that  it  was  considered  disgraceful  for  a  bridegroom 
to  be  seen  in  the  company  of  his  wife ;  yet  he  could 
exchange  her  at  will  or  at  the  command  of  the 
rulers,  and  jealousy  was  laughed  at  as  a  "  vain  and 
womanish  passion."  But  it  was  the  pride  of  the 
Spartans  that  no  invasion  of  the  sanctity  of  the 
home  was  ever  heard  of!  They  excused  them- 
selves for  what  we  should  call  moral  delinquencies 
of  the  worst  sort — if  indeed  they  thought  any 
excuse  needed,  which  is  not  probable — by  the  con- 
venient maxim  that  the  end  justifies  the  means. 
The  interests  of  the  State  were  above  any  moral 
law  whatever.  No  doubt  the  arbitrary  manner  in 

58 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE    SPARTAN   WOMAN 

which  women  were  often  disposed  of  for  the  public 
good,  or  at  the  caprice  of  their  lords,  seemed  to 
them  a  better  sort  of  fate  than  living  in  seclusion, 
as  their  Attic  sisters  did,  under  the  roof  of  a  man 
who  gave  them  no  liberty,  and  no  society,  not  even 
his  own.  They  certainly  were  not  troubled  with 
an  excess  of  sentiment ;  but  marriages  were,  on  the 
whole,  happy,  and  love  was  often  a  factor  in  them, 
which  was  rarely  the  case  among  their  more  civil- 
ized neighbors.  It  was  not  in  the  nature  of  these 
practical  people  to  look  at  things  from  an  esthetic 
point  of  view.  Their  notions  were  confessedly 
utilitarian.  To-day  we  should  call  many  of  them 
scientific.  Happily,  modern  science  has  not  yet 
meddled  quite  so  far  with  the  rights  of  the  indi- 
vidual, though  clearly  headed  in  that  direction. 

If  the  Spartan  woman  did  not  relish  such  cavalier 
treatment,  she  had  the  small  comfort  of  knowing 
that  men  were  not  free  themselves,  and  that  really, 
on  the  whole,  she  had  the  best  of  it.  "  The  door 
of  his  court  is  the  boundary  of  every  man's  free- 
dom," was  a  Lacedaemonian  maxim.  Outside  of 
it,  all  of  his  movements  were  controlled  by  the 
State.  In  this  paradise  of  socialism,  he  was  pun- 
ished for  not  marrying,  for  waiting  too  long,  and 
for  marrying  the  wrong  woman,  that  is,  one  who 
was  too  old,  or  too  young,  or  too  rich,  or  too  far 
above  or  below  him  in  station.  Archidamus,  one 
of  their  rulers,  was  fined  for  marrying  a  little 

59 


woman,  because  she  would  "  bring  them  a  race  of 
pygmies  instead  of  kings."  There  were  special 
penalties  for  those  who  sought  money  instead  of 
merit  and  suitability.  The  fortune-hunter  fared 
badly  in  Sparta.  We  have  grown  civilized  and 
changed  all  that.  A  man  suffered  his  penalty  for 
remaining  single,  even  if  he  were  a  coward  whom 
no  one  was  permitted  to  marry,  which  seems 
doubly  hard.  The  poor  bachelors  who  would  not 
or  could  not  take  a  wife,  were  stripped  and 
marched  in  a  procession  about  the  market-place  on 
a  cold  day  once  a  year,  as  a  fit  target  for  ridicule 
and  contempt,  not  to  say  more  tangible  missiles. 
If  any  woman  had  a  private  grudge,  she  might 
vent  it  with  impunity,  even  to  blows,  while  the 
unfortunate  victim  was  forced  to  chant  his  own 
miserere.  Maiden  ladies  of  mature  age  were  rare 
among  the  hills  of  Lacedasmon. 

Notwithstanding  the  low  ideals  which  would 
seem  to  have  reduced  the  women  of  Sparta  to  the 
position  of  useful  animals,  valued  solely  for  their 
physical  vigor  and  fitness  to  be  mothers  of  a  hardy 
race,  they  evidently  constituted  a  leisure  class 
which  had  a  monopoly  of  whatever  learning  and 
refinement  were  to  be  found  there.  They  lived  in 
such  comfort  as  they  could  command,  while  their 
husbands  slept  on  cold  beds  of  reeds,  dined  on 
black  bread  and  coarse  rations  at  the  public  table, 
and  practised  every  form  of  asceticism  to  fit  them- 

60 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE   SPARTAN   WOMAN 

selves  for  war.  Their  sons  were  taken  from  them 
at  seven,  to  be  put  under  the  training  of  men  and 
subjected  to  the  same  stern  discipline.  The  spin- 
ning, weaving,  and  other  work  of  the  family  was 
given  to  slaves,  so  that  the  privileges  of  luxury  and 
idleness  fell  to  the  women  alone.  They  came  and 
went  as  they  chose,  and  were  even  thought  to  have 
intellects  worth  cultivating.  Men  looked  upon 
literary  and  artistic  pursuits  as  effeminate.  A 
Spartan  king  replied  to  some  one  who  brought  to 
his  notice  the  greatest  musician  of  his  time,  by 
pointing  to  his  cook  as  the  best  maker  of  black 
broth.  This  social  Utopia  in  which  the  individual 
was  lost  in  the  mass,  and  no  one  could  safely  be 
superior  to  his  neighbor,  was  the  blessed  haven  of 
mediocrity  and  what  we  should  call  indolence. 
War  was  the  only  honorable  business;  even  trade 
and  the  mechanic  arts  were  left  to  slaves.  A 
Spartan  visiting  Athens  was  much  disturbed  on 
hearing  that  a  man  had  been  fined  for  idleness,  and 
naively  asked  to  see  one  who  was  punished  for  keep- 
ing up  his  dignity.  Life  was  materialized,  and  all 
fine  ideals  were  destroyed  save  the  single  one  of 
national  glory,  for  which  they  willingly  stifled  per- 
sonal feeling  and  personal  talent.  Things  of  the 
intellect  and  spirit  were  quite  ignored. 

But  the  Doric  women  had  to  some  extent  the 
tastes  of  the  JEolians,  and  were  as  a  rule  far  better 
educated  than  their  husbands.  We  hear  of  clubs 

6l 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE    SPARTAN   WOMAN 

or  associations  of  women  for  the  cultivation  of  the 
mind,  and  for  teaching  girls  after  the  fashion  of 
the  time.  In  music  they  excelled.  Aristophanes 
introduces  in  "  Lysistrata  "  choruses  of  Spartan  and 
Athenian  maidens  who  sing  in  friendly  rivalry. 
Many  of  the  parthenia,  or  processional  hymns,  were 
written  by  foreign  poets  for  these  young  girls, 
whose  spiritual  aspirations  found  vent  in  that  way. 
They  did  not  give  voice  to  personal  emotions,  but 
to  great  religious  or  patriotic  enthusiasms. 

Whatever  education  may  have  been  given  to 
women,  it  is  not  likely  that  their  intellectual  stan- 
dards were  very  broad  or  very  high ;  at  least,  we 
have  no  visible  evidence  of  it,  as  we  find  no  living 
trace  of  their  talents  for  some  centuries  after  the 
brief  poetic  flowering  that  followed  Sappho,  and 
even  then  not  in  Sparta.  It  was  among  the  Dorians 
of  a  later  time,  and  mainly  in  the  colonies,  that  the 
feminine  taste  for  literature  revived,  but  it  took  a 
didactic  or  philosophical  form,  and  they  wrote  in 
prose. 

The  talent  of  the  Spartan  women  was  largely  ex- 
ecutive, and  they  were  noted  for  judgment,  as  well 
as  for  heroism.  As  nurses  they  were  in  great 
demand  in  other  parts  of  Greece.  A  strong  proof 
of  their  gifts  of  administration  is  found  in  the  fact 
that  they  had  equal  rights  of  inheritance  with  men, 
and  came  in  time  to  own  two  fifths  of  the  land  and 
a  large  share  of  the  personal  property.  This  gave 

62 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE    SPARTAN   WOMAN 

them  a  dignity  and  influence  not  accorded  to  their 
sex  elsewhere.  Aristotle  did  not  like  their  freedom 
and  power.  He  claimed  that  they  ruled  their  hus- 
bands too  imperiously;  also,  that  they  were  liable 
to  be  troublesome  in  times  of  war,  as  it  was  impos- 
sible to  bring  them  under  military  discipline.  If 
they  ruled  the  rulers,  he  thought  that  the  results 
would  be  the  same  as  if  they  ruled  in  their  own 
right.  Plutarch  tells  us  that  "  the  Spartans  listened 
to  their  wives,  and  women  were  permitted  to  med- 
dle more  with  public  business  than  men  with  the 
domestic."  Again  he  says  that  "women  consid- 
ered themselves  absolute  mistresses  in  their  houses ; 
indeed,  they  wanted  a  share  in  affairs  of  State,  and 
delivered  their  opinions  with  great  freedom  con- 
cerning the  most  weighty  matters."  But  freedom 
is  relative,  and  a  little  of  it  goes  a  great  way  where 
there  has  been,  as  a  rule,  none  at  all.  It  does  not 
seem  that  any  fears  on  this  subject  were  realized, 
as  their  influence,  so  far  as  we  know,  was  conserva- 
tive, and  they  were  subordinate  in  theory  if  not 
always  in  fact.  "  When  I  was  a  girl  I  was  taught 
to  obey  my  father,  and  I  obeyed  him,"  said  a 
woman,  when  asked  to  do  something  of  doubtful 
propriety ;  "  and  when  I  became  a  wife  I  obeyed 
my  husband ;  if  you  have  anything  just  to  urge, 
make  it  known  to  him  first."  A  clever  if  not  very 
chivalrous  writer  of  the  time  says :  "  It  becomes  a 
man  to  talk  much,  and  a  woman  to  rejoice  in  all 

63 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE   SPARTAN   WOMAN 

she  hears  " — a  comfortable  arrangement  for  dull 
husbands,  who  would  be  sure  at  least  of  an  apprecia- 
tive audience  at  home. 

But  we  find  instances  of  heroic  devotion  among 
these  hardy  women,  for  which  we  look  in  vain 
among  the  ignorant  and  secluded  wives  of  Athens. 
It  is  a  pity  that  Plutarch  did  not  give  some  of  them 
a  distinct  place  in  his  gallery  of  celebrities.  He 
had  a  superior  wife  himself,  a  well-bred  woman  of 
dignity,  tenderness,  great  mental  vigor,  simple  taste, 
and  distinguished  virtues,  who  was  above  the  van- 
ities of  her  time,  and  bore  sorrow  like  a  philosopher. 
He  loved  her  devotedly,  praised  her  fortitude,  and 
admired  her  strength.  This  perhaps  accounts  for 
the  fact  that  he  was  kindly  disposed  toward  women 
in  general,  and  thought  that  their  fame  should  be 
known,  since  love  of  glory  was  not  confined  to  one 
sex.  But  if  he  did  not  set  them  on  a  pinnacle  of 
their  own,  he  has  shown  us  by  various  anecdotes 
that  they  could  counsel  like  seers  and  die  like 
heroes.  In  the  decline  of  Sparta,  when  Agis 
planned  to  restore  the  old  simplicity  it  had  lost  with 
the  coming  of  luxury  and  foreign  ways,  he  asked 
the  aid  of  his  mother,  the  brave  Agesistrata,  a 
woman  of  great  wealth  and  influence.  She  thought 
the  division  of  property  he  proposed  neither  wise 
nor  practicable,  and  advised  him  against  it.  But 
when  she  found  his  heart  set  upon  it  as  a  means  of 
winning  glory,  as  well  as  bringing  back  the  people 

64 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE    SPARTAN    WOMAN 

to  virtue  and  simpler  manners,  she  consented  not 
only  to  give  up  her  own  great  fortune,  but  to  induce 
others  to  join  her.  As  the  wealth  of  Sparta  was 
largely  in  the  hands  of  women  who  were  less  dis- 
interested and  did  not  care  to  lose  either  their  lux- 
uries or  their  power,  this  socialistic  movement  failed, 
and  its  self-sacrificing  leaders  were  put  to  death. 
When  Agesistrata  was  led  into  the  prison  to  see 
her  son,  he  lay  strangled  before  her.  She  tenderly 
placed  her  own  dead  mother  by  his  side,  and  baring 
her  neck  with  calm  dignity,  said :  "  May  this  prove 
for  the  good  of  Sparta." 

In  the  second  attempt  to  restore  the  prestige  of 
the  falling  State,  Cratesiclea  rivals  the  great  hero- 
ines of  the  dramatists  in  her  noble  self-surrender. 
Ptolemy  demanded,  as  the  price  of  his  alliance,  that 
Cleomenes  should  send  his  mother  and  son  to  Egypt 
as  hostages.  When  she  heard  of  it  she  smilingly 
said :  "  Was  this  the  thing  you  have  so  long  hesi- 
tated to  tell  me?  Send  this  body  of  mine  at  once 
where  it  will  be  of  the  most  use  to  Sparta,  before 
age  renders  it  good  for  nothing."  She  went  with- 
out tears,  saying  that  no  one  must  see  them  weep. 
Finding  afterward  that  the  king  was  hampered  by 
the  fear  that  some  ill  might  befall  them,  she  sent 
him  word  to  do  what  was  best,  and  never  mind 
what  became  of  an  old  woman  and  a  little  child. 
This  enterprise,  too,  was  a  futile  one,  but  the  women 
who  had  inspired  men  with  their  own  courage  and 

65 


GLIMPSES    OF   THE    SPARTAN    WOMAN 

devotion  died  as  bravely  as  they  had  lived.  It  is 
a  touching  scene  where  the  young  and  beautiful 
wife  of  Panteus  pays  the  last  offices  to  her  dead 
friends,  then,  folding  her  robe  modestly  about  her, 
tranquilly  tells  the  executioner  to  do  his  work. 

"  In  women  too  there  lives  the  strength  of  battle," 
says  Sophocles,  and  nowhere  could  he  have  found 
such  heroic  examples  as  among  the  rugged  hills  of 
Sparta.  Out  of  such  material,  Antigones  and 
Iphigenias  are  created. 

Beneath  a  discipline  of  the  affections  so  severe 
that  it  seems  as  if  they  must  have  been  crushed 
altogether,  we  sometimes  fall  upon  unsuspected 
depths  of  tenderness.  Chelonis  left  her  husband  in 
his  day  of  power,  to  care  for  her  father,  who  had 
been  deposed  and  was  in  disgrace  and  need. 
When  the  political  tables  were  turned,  and  her 
father  was  again  on  the  throne,  she  pleaded  with  elo- 
quence and  tears  for  her  husband's  life.  Her  wise 
and  tactful  words  saved  him,  but  he  was  exiled. 
She  was  urged  by  her  family  to  stay  and  enjoy  the 
fruits  of  their  victory,  but,  turning  sorrowfully  away, 
she  took  her  children,  kissed  the  altar  where  they 
had  found  a  sanctuary,  and  went  out  with  her  dis- 
graced husband  to  poverty  and  obscurity. 

We  cannot  measure  these  Spartan  women  by  the 
standards  of  to-day.  They  did  not  belong  to  the 
age  of  university  courses,  society  functions,  and 
Christian  ideals.  Love  as  we  understand  it  played 

66 


GLIMPSES    OF    THE    SPARTAN    WOMAN 

a  small  part  in  their  lives,  and  of  romance  there  is 
little  trace,  though  examples  of  conjugal  affection 
are  not  rare.  Of  what  we  call  learning  they  proba- 
bly had  very  little,  and  of  esthetic  taste  still  less, 
but  of  clear  judgment,  solid  character,  and  fearless 
courage,  they  had  a  great  deal.  They  were  trained 
as  companions  and  helpers  of  men,  not  as  their  toys, 
though  they  were  always  subject  to  them.  It  was 
a  simple  life  they  led — a  life  with  few  graces  and 
few  of  our  complexities.  They  were  the  Puritans 
of  the  classic  world,  without  the  Puritan  conscience 
or  moral  sense,  but  with  more  than  Puritan  courage 
and  fortitude. 


THE 

ATHENIAN   WOMAN,  ASPASIA, 
AND    THE    FIRST    SALON 


THE    ATHENIAN    WOMAN,  ASPASIA, 

AND    THE    FIRST   SALON 

8 

«    Vassalage  of  the  Athenian  Woman    • 

•    Her  Ignorance  and  Seclusion    • 

•    Religious  Festivals    •    The  Hetasrs    • 

•    Aspasia    •    Her  Position    •    Her  Gifts    • 

•    Tribute  of  Socrates    • 

•    Devotion  of  Pericles    • 

•    The  First  Salon    •    Opinions  of  the  Philosophers    • 
Woman's  Inferior  Position  a  Cause  of  Athenian  Decline 


THE    ATHENIAN    WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 
AND   THE    FIRST   SALON 


HE  Athenians  agreed  with  the  opin- 
ion ascribed  to  Pericles  that  "  the  best 
wife  is  the  one  of  whom  the  least  is 
said  either  of  good  or  evil."  But 
this  wise  statesman  does  not  seem 
to  have  found  his  theory  agreeable  in  practice,  as  he 
sent  away  his  own  wife,  who  was  quite  innocent  even 
of  local  fame,  to  put  in  her  place  the  cleverest  and 
most  talked  of  woman  of  her  time.  She  accepted 
the  inevitable  with  becoming  philosophy,  if  not 
gratefully,  and  it  must  be  said  to  his  credit  that  he 
was  kind  enough  to  help  her  to  another  husband. 
But  what  became  of  his  theory?  One  is  tempted 
to  think  that  Thucydides,  who  put  these  words  into 
his  mouth,  was  speaking  largely  for  himself,  as  it  is 
clear  that  he  thought  women  too  unimportant,  if 

71 


THE    ATHENIAN   WOMAN,  ASPASIA, 

not  too  precious,  to  be  talked  about ;  else  why  did 
the  great  historian  so  utterly  ignore  them  ? 

It  is  a  significant  fact  which  upsets  many  pleas- 
ant little  theories  about  the  superior  justice  of  a 
democracy,  that  women  who  shared  the  power  and 
glory  of  their  husbands  in  the  heroic  age, —  even  if 
they  had  little  of  their  own,  —  and  preserved  a  mea- 
sure of  influence  under  the  rule  of  kings  in  historic 
times,  lost  their  honored  position  in  republican 
Athens.  In  a  rule  of  the  people  they  had  no  longer 
the  prestige  of  an  aristocracy,  and  they  did  not 
count  politically.  As  they  held  no  recognized  place 
of  honor,  and  it  was  not  respectable  to  shine  by 
their  talents,  they  had  no  apparent  claim  to  consid- 
eration. They  might  stand  on  a  pedestal  to  add 
to  the  glory  of  men,  they  might  grace  a  hereditary 
throne  for  the  honor  of  a  family,  but  it  never 
occurred  to  the  classic  world  that  woman  sprang, 
as  the  witty  Frenchman  said,  "  from  the  side  of 
Adam,  and  not  from  his  feet." 

To  all  intents  and  purposes,  the  Attic  women 
were  slaves,  with  no  rights  and  few  privileges. 
We  do  not  know  much  about  them  directly,  as 
they  left  no  record  of  themselves,  and  very  little 
was  written  of  them  except  by  the  satirists,  who 
are  always  ready  to  distort  the  truth  in  order  to 
"point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale."  Historians  were 
strangely  silent  regarding  them ;  unless  of  royal 
lineage,  women  were  too  insignificant.  It  is  diffi- 

72 


AND   THE   FIRST   SALON 

cult,  in  the  face  of  the  few  facts  we  know,  to 
credit  the  brilliant  Athenians  with  any  chivalry. 
We  must  either  suppose  that  the  poets  were  a  sour 
and  disappointed  race,  or  that  they  reflected  the 
spirit  of  their  time.  Apart  from  the  few  great 
ideals  that  lived  in  the  imaginations  of  men,  every- 
thing that  has  come  down  to  us  shows  the  light 
estimate  in  which  women  were  held.  They  were  a 
lower  order  of  beings,  and  anything  done  by  their 
advice  was  invalid.  "  Women  are  an  evil,"  says 
the  comedian,  "  and  yet,  my  countrymen,  one  can- 
not set  up  a  house  without  evil ;  for  to  be  married 
or  not  to  be  married  is  alike  bad."  This  arrogant 
and  contemptuous  tone  runs  through  the  Attic  lit- 
erature, as  I  have  shown  more  fully  elsewhere. 

From  the  vague  and  shadowy  outlines  of  a  life 
that  was  practically  shut  out  from  the  light  of  day 
twenty-five  centuries  ago,  we  cannot  gather  with 
certainty  even  the  moral  and  domestic  value  of 
women  who  were  treated  with  lofty  disdain  by 
poets,  satirists,  and  historians  alike.  But  we  do 
know  that  intellectually  they  counted  for  nothing, 
within  the  pale  of  orthodox  society.  At  a  period 
when  the  central  idea  was  culture,  when  art  was  at 
its  zenith,  and  there  were  giants  in  literature,  the 
wives  and  daughters  of  men  noted  before  all  things 
for  brilliancy  and  esprit  had  fallen  into  hopeless 
ignorance  and  vassalage.  They  lacked  even  the 
companionship  and  the  small  diversions  of  the  Ori- 

73 


THE   ATHENIAN   WOMAN,  ASPASIA, 

ental  harem,  where  the  inmates,  though  they  had 
only  a  small  fraction  of  a  husband,  could  break  the 
monotony  by  gossiping  or  quarreling  with  the  other 
wives.  The  women  of  the  better  class  at  Athens 
had  special  apartments,  usually  in  the  upper  story, 
so  that  they  could  not  go  out  without  being  seen. 
Men  went  to  market  themselves  or  sent  their  slaves. 
We  learn  from  Aristophanes  that  they  often  put 
their  wives  under  lock  and  key,  with  a  seal  when 
they  went  away,  also  that  they  kept  Molossian 
hounds  to  frighten  away  possible  lovers.  A  woman 
addressed  her  husband  as  "  master,"  was  always  a 
minor,  and  could  transact  no  business  on  her  own 
account,  which  even  Plato  thought  unjust.  If  he 
died  she  was  not  his  heir,  but  the  ward  of  her  son 
or  of  some  male  relative.  In  her  marriage  she  was 
not  consulted,  and  she  was  never  supposed  to  know 
any  man  but  the  one  chosen  for  her.  Solon,  who 
wished  to  prevent  mercenary  marriages,  decreed 
that  no  dowries  should  be  given,  and  that  the  bride 
could  have  only  three  suits  of  clothes ;  later,  unions 
were  arranged  by  the  families,  on  a  basis  of  equal 
fortunes.  Infidelity  on  the  part  of  the  husband 
was  no  ground  of  complaint.  As  wives  were  so 
closely  guarded  there  does  not  seem  to  have  been 
much  danger  of  indiscretions,  but  they  were  sent 
away  on  the  slightest  suspicion,  and  their  punish- 
ments were  carried  to  the  utmost  refinement  of 
cruelty.  In  spite  of  this  surveillance,  possibly 

74 


AND   THE   FIRST   SALON 

because  of  it,  sins  against  morality  were  more  fre- 
quent than  in  Sparta. 

After  the  age  of  sixty,  women  were  permitted  to 
go  to  funerals  outside  of  their  families,  if  they 
would  not  mourn  too  violently.  These  occasions 
must  have  been  rather  welcome  than  otherwise,  as 
Greek  funerals  were  not  hopelessly  solemn  affairs, 
except  to  the  immediate  family.  Brides  had  the 
special  privilege  of  sitting  at  table  at  their  own 
wedding  banquets,  to  which  only  relatives  or  very 
near  friends  were  asked.  The  amusements  of 
women  seem  to  have  consisted  largely  in  looking 
out  of  the  window  and  making  their  toilets.  If 
they  went  to  the  theater  at  all,  they  were  limited 
to  tragedy  and  had  to  take  back  seats. 

We  have  an  account  of  one  model  husband  who 
is  not  content  that  his  young  wife  should  simply 
know  how  to  spin,  weave,  and  direct  her  maids,  so 
he  tries  to  educate  her.  She  is  only  fifteen,  and  he 
says  that  she  has  lived  under  the  strictest  restraint 
so  that  she  might  "  see  as  little,  hear  as  little,  and 
ask  as  few  questions  as  possible."  ,  When  he  has 
her  properly  domesticated  so  that  she  dares  to 
speak  in  his  presence,  he  explains  their  mutual 
responsibilities  in  terms  that  must  have  mystified 
this  child  of  nature  a  little,  tells  her  to  do  well  what 
the  gods  have  suited  to  her  and  men  approve,  to 
use  no  cosmetics  or  aids  to  beauty,  and  to  knead 
bread  or  fold  linen  for  exercise,  since  she  must  not 

75 


THE   ATHENIAN  WOMAN,   ASPASIA, 

walk  out.  The  main  thing  he  dwells  upon  is  the 
necessity  of  looking  closely  after  their  common 
fortunes ;  but  she  has  also  to  take  care  of  the  chil- 
dren, and  nurse  the  slaves  when  they  are  ill.  He 
kindly  admits  that  if  she  is  superior  to  him  she  will 
be  mistress, — taking  good  care,  however,  that  such 
an  unfortunate  state  of  affairs  shall  not  exist  so  far 
as  education  is  concerned, — and  assures  her  that  the 
better  she  serves  the  interests  of  his  family  and 
household,  the  more  she  will  be  honored.  This  is 
all  very  well  so  far  as  it  goes,  and  we  may  readily 
admit  that  it  is  of  more  vital  importance  to  admin- 
ister the  affairs  of  one's  family  with  judgment  and 
dignity  than  to  talk  about  art  or  read  Homer.  But 
the  docile  wife  had  a  housekeeper  as  well  as  plenty 
of  slaves,  and,  naturally,  abundant  leisure.  It  cer- 
tainly implied  a  degree  of  what  Socrates  called 
"manly  understanding"  on  her  part,  to  follow  her 
husband's  abstruse  reasoning  on  the  duties  of  wo- 
men, and  his  minute  instructions  for  carrying  them 
out;  yet  this  wise  representative  of  the  most  civil- 
ized race  the  world  has  known  never  so  much  as 
hints  that  she  has  an  intellect 

Socrates  listens  with  great  interest  to  this  ad- 
vanced theory  of  wife-training  as  it  is  unfolded  to 
him,  and  sagely  remarks  that  the  husband  is 
responsible  for  her  errors  if  he  does  not  properly 
teach  her.  It  seems  that  he  did  not  try  the  system 
on  Xanthippe,  or  if  he  did  it  was  a  dismal  failure, 

76 


AND   THE   FIRST   SALON 

as  the  much-abused  woman  is  never  quoted  as  a 
model  or  a  saint,  and  we  do  not  hear  that  he  taxed 
himself  with  her  shortcomings.  He  said  that  he 
married  her  for  the  excitement  of  conquest — the 
same  motive  that  leads  a  man  to  try  his  power  over 
a  high-spirited  horse ;  also  as  a  discipline,  be- 
cause he  was  sure  that  he  could  endure  every 
one  else  if  he  could  endure  her.  It  would  be 
curious  to  know  what  she  thought  about  it,  but 
one  cannot  help  suspecting  that  she  had  the  lion's 
share  of  the  discipline,  and  that  Socrates  was  a 
greater  success  as  a  philosopher  and  talker  than  as 
a  husband. 

There  was  one  exception,  however,  to  this  rigid 
seclusion,  a  small  recognition  of  the  fact  that 
women  probably  have  souls.  They  were  allowed  a 
part  in  religious  festivals,  and  these  were  events  in 
their  lives.  They  meant  a  breath  of  fresh  air  and 
a  glimpse  of  the  outer  world.  Perhaps  they  meant 
also  a  little  spiritual  consolation,  which  must  often 
have  been  greatly  needed ;  but  of  this  we  are  not 
sure.  The  Hellenic  divinities  were  not  eminently 
consoling,  and  the  wise  Athena  was  particularly 
unsympathetic,  though  the  Athenian  virgins  had  at 
least  the  pleasure  of  making  her  richly  ornamented 
robes,  and  putting  them  on  her  once  a  year.  The 
woman  in  the  comedy  says  that  at  seven  she  could 
carry  the  peplum  in  the  procession,  at  ten  she 
ground  cakes  for  the  patron  goddess,  and  when  she 

77 


THE    ATHENIAN  WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

grew  to  be  a  beautiful  maiden,  she  had  charge  of  the 
sacred  basket. 

One  can  imagine  the  flutter  of  pleasure  with 
which  the  young  girls  of  the  golden  age  of  Athens 
donned  their  white  draperies  and  gold-embroidered 
mantles  to  march  in  the  Panathenaic  procession  to 
the  Acropolis.  Their  snowy  veils  floated  airily  in 
the  breeze,  as  they  went  up  the  marble  steps  of  the 
propylaea  chanting  choral  hymns  and  carrying  in 
their  hands  the  branches  of  silvery  olive  to  lay  at 
the  feet  of  the  stately  goddess.  How  bright  the 
sky!  how  blue  the  sparkling  sea!  How  beautiful 
the  white  temples  and  colonnades,  alive  with  sculp- 
tured heroes!  Before  them  rose  Hymettus  in  its 
robe  of  violet  haze,  and  the  cone  of  Lycabettus, 
sharply  outlined  in  the  clear  air.  Sheltered  behind 
the  low  hills  on  the  other  side  of  the  vast  olive- 
groves,  the  magnificent  temple  of  Eleusis,  with  its 
heart  of  mystery,  towered  in  its  peerless  majesty, 
and  the  restless  waves  of  Salamis  lapped  the  shore 
at  its  side.  This  world  of  beauty  was  young  then 
and  fresh,  with  no  age-old  tragedies  to  sadden  the 
brilliant  crowd  that  wound  in  dazzling  array  through 
the  forest  of  columns  and  statues.  The  flower  of 
Athens  was  there — brave,  handsome,  and  clever 
men,  poets,  artists,  and  philosophers,  warriors  on 
prancing  horses,  beautiful  women  and  laughing 
children.  If  the  uncaged  maidens  were  tempted  to 
flirt  a  little  with  their  soft,  dark  eyes,  who'can  blame 

78 


AND   THE    FIRST   SALON 

them  ?  They  were  young  and  human,  companion- 
ship was  sweet,  and  they  too  had  tender  hearts, 
though  small  account  was  made  of  them. 

But  the  day  ends.  The  sacred  Athena  is  resplen- 
dent in  her  new  robe.  The  gay  crowd  moves  back 
past  the  exquisite  little  Ionic  temple  of  Victory  and 
down  the  massive  steps  into  the  agora,  where  life 
goes  on  as  before.  Men  throng  the  porticos  and 
talk  of  the  new  play  of  Sophocles,  or  the  last  statue 
of  Phidias,  or  the  prospects  of  war,  or  any  of  the 
thousand  and  one  things  that  come  uppermost  in 
the  affairs  of  a  great  city.  When  the  shadows  fall 
and  the  stars  come  out  bright  and  shining  in  that 
crystal  air,  they  gather  at  banquets  or  symposia, 
where  flute-players  and  dancing-girls  are  brought 
in  to  amuse  them,  or  some  Lais  or  Phryne  of  the 
hour  enthralls  them  by  her  beauty  and  dazzles  them 
with  her  wit.  But  the  wives  and  daughters  of  these 
men,  who  do  not  see  fit  to  educate  them  for  com- 
panions, go  back  to  their  lonely  homes  and  to  an 
isolation  from  all  social  and  intellectual  interests  as 
deep  as  if  they  were  asleep  in  the  sculptured  tombs 
of  the  Via  Sacra. 

The  women  of  Athens  fulfilled  their  duties  with 
becoming  modesty,  so  far  as  we  know.  They  were 
respectably  ignorant,  and  did  not  encroach  upon  the 
time-honored  privileges  of  men.  It  is  true  that 
Elpinice,  the  sister  of  Cimon,  was  a  trifle  strong- 
minded,  and,  taking  the  Spartan  women  as  models, 

79 


THE   ATHENIAN   WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

went  about  alone ;  but  we  do  not  hear  that  she  had 
any  following.  Unpleasant  things  were  said  about 
her,  which  we  are  safe  in  doubting,  as  unpleasant 
things  have  always  been  said  of  women  who  pre- 
sumed to  have  opinions  of  their  own,  or  to  walk 
outside  of  the  straight  line  of  tradition.  At  all 
events,  a  rich  Athenian  fell  in  love  with  her,  and 
was  glad  to  take  her  without  a  dowry  and  pay  the 
fine  of  her  distinguished  father.  But  it  is  certain 
that  no  appreciable  number  of  Attic  ladies  were 
disposed  to  incur  the  odium  of  public  opinion  so 
distinctly  expressed  in  these  words : 

Good  women  must  abide  within  the  house; 
Those  whom  we  meet  abroad  are  nothing  worth. 

Why  in  the  face  of  such  reverent  submission  were 
they  so  contemptuously  spoken  of?  We  are  often 
told  to-day  that  women  cannot  expect  any  privileges 
when  they  want  rights.  It  may  be  pertinent  to  ask, 
in  the  name  of  consistency,  why  they  had  no  priv- 
ileges when  they  sat  humbly  at  the  feet  of  their 
husbands  and  demanded  no  rights? 

But  it  was  among  these  women  that  the  great 
dramatists  lived  and  created  the  master-pieces  of 
the  world.  It  may  be  that  they  saw  and  felt  the 
cheerless  side  of  so  fettered  a  life,  and  that  is  why 
they  painted  their  heroines  in  such  somber  colors, 
too  often  innocent  victims  of  men's  misdeeds,  and 
doomed  to  suffering  with  the  sad  inevitability  of 

80 


AND    THE    FIRST    SALON 

fate.  But  the  noble  character  and  fine  intelligence 
given  to  so  many  of  them  must  have  had  some 
counterpart  in  reality.  Did  the  city  that  produced 
Antigone,  Iphigenia,  and  Alcestis,  have  no  great 
women,  or  did  their  creators  look  elsewhere  for  the 
moral  dignity  that  made  them  possible?  And 
where  were  the  models  found?  Not,  surely,  among 
the  hetaerae  whose  power,  whatever  it  may  have 
been,  was  not  a  moral  one.  Not  even  among  the  god- 
desses, who  were  notoriously  vain,  selfish,  crafty,  and 
cruel.  We  know  that  a  thousand  untold  tales  of  vir- 
tue and  heroism  are  hidden  behind  closed  doors,  and 
we  may  well  believe  they  were  not  without  precedent 
among  these  apparently  colorless  and  pent-up  lives. 
Then  it  is  easy  perhaps  to  err  in  assuming  that 
there  were  no  women  who  rose  above  hard  con- 
ditions into  a  degree  of  companionship  with  their 
husbands.  It  is  true  they  had  no  education  and 
were  excluded  from  the  society  of  men  who  had  it, 
but  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  that  the  women  of  so 
brilliant  a  race  were  utterly  without  the  clear  per- 
ception and  flexible  intelligence  which  made  its  men 
so  famous.  Nor  can  we  infer  invariable  misery. 
There  have  been  good  men  in  all  ages  who  loved 
their  families,  and  women  whose  light  could  not  be 
extinguished.  The  great  Cimon  is  said  to  have 
had  an  ardent  affection  for  his  wife,  and  he  was 
inconsolable  after  her  death,  though  he  did  not  curb 
his  wandering  fancies  while  she  lived.  Socrates 
6  81 


THE   ATHENIAN  WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

mentions  Niceratus  as  "  one  who  was  in  love  with 
his  wife  and  loved  by  her."  There  is  a  familiar 
anecdote  of  Themistocles  that  puts  him  in  a  pleas- 
ant light.  He  said  in  a  laughing  way  that  his  little 
son  was  greater  than  any  man  in  Greece,  "  for  the 
Athenians  command  the  Greeks,  I  command  the 
Athenians,  his  mother  commands  me,  and  he  com- 
mands his  mother."  If  reports  be  true,  however, 
the  influence  of  his  wife  was  largely  theoretical,  as 
it  did  not  suffice  to  keep  him  from  doing  some  very 
disreputable  things.  But  he  wished  a  worthy  man 
for  his  daughter,  rather  than  a  rich  one,  saying  he 
"  would  prefer  a  man  without  money  to  money 
without  a  man."  Aristotle  is  not  quoted  among 
the  champions  of  women,  but  he  tenderly  loved  his 
own  wife,  whom  he  married  in  spite  of  the  reverses 
which  had  ruined  her  family.  Her  life  was  brief, 
but  he  left  orders  that  when  he  died  her  remains 
should  be  transferred  to  the  tomb  which  held  his 
own,  according  to  her  last  request.  This  was  done 
long  years  after  her  death,  though  he  had  another 
wife  whose  virtues  he  commends,  asking  his  friends 
to  give  her  kind  attention  and  provide  her  with  a 
suitable  husband  if  she  wishes  to  marry  again. 
These  instances  among  well-known  men  are  worthy 
of  note,  and  others  might  be  cited.  But  the  ex- 
ceptions prove  the  rule,  and  the  very  fact  that  it 
was  a  matter  of  comment  when  a  man  was  in  love 
with  his  wife  shows  that  it  was  rare. 

82 


AND    THE    FIRST   SALON 


II 

IT  would  be  a  mistake,  however,  to  suppose  that 
the  great  Athenians  were  without  the-  sympathy 
and  influence  of  educated  women;  indeed,  it  may 
be  safely  said  that  no  great  things  in  art  or  litera- 
ture have  ever  been  done  without  this  inspiration. 
The  ignorance  of  the  Attic  woman  had  its  natural 
protest,  though  it  did  not  come  from  an  orthodox 
source.  Respectability  was  on  the  side  of  servitude. 
It  had  a  dull  time,  but  it  was  decorous,  and  consoled 
itself,  as  it  has  often  done  since,  with  the  reflection 
that  dullness  was  its  natural  lot.  No  doubt  it  took 
pride  in  its  nothingness,  and  looked  with  haughty 
disdain  upon  the  clever  foreign  women  who  were 
free  to  do  as  they  chose.  Fashion  is  imperious,  not 
to  say  cruel,  and  even  the  Chinese  lady  hobbles 
along  on  her  distorted  feet  with  a  happy  conscious- 
ness of  distinction  that  amply  repays  her  for  all  her 
suffering. 

But  social  conventions  had  small  weight  with  the 
foreign  hetaerse  or  companions,  who  had  no  legal 
rights,  and  no  caste  to  lose.  The  real  power  of 
women  was  in  their  hands.  They  were  intelligent,  • 
often  gifted,  and  the  better  class  had  refined  and 
graceful  manners,  which  the  Athenian  wives  evi- 
dently had  not.  It  was  said  of  them  that  they  were 
delicate  at  table,  and  not  like  the  native  women,  who 

83 


THE   ATHENIAN  WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

"  stuffed  their  cheeks,  and  tore  off  the  meat."  They 
were  also  noted  for  wit  and  esprit,  a  quality  of  vola- 
tilized intellect  that  has  always  had  great  social 
charm.  These  advanced  women  of  the  day,  who 
cast  into  the  shade  their  illiterate  sisters,  monopo- 
lized both  attention  and  honors.  Men  praised  the 
good  women  who  stayed  at  home  and  looked  after 
their  families,  but  sought  the  society  of  clever  ones 
who  did  neither  of  these  fine  things.  With  curious 
inconsistency,  they  found  the  culture  which  was 
reprehensible  and  out  of  the  proper  order  of  nature 
in  their  wives  and  daughters  so  charming  in  other 
women  as  to  merit  the  highest  distinction.  Poets 
sang  of  them,  artists  immortalized  them,  statesmen 
and  philosophers  paid  court  to  them. 

'T  is  not  for  nothing  that  where'er  we  go 
We  find  a  temple  of  hetaeras  there, 
But  nowhere  one  to  any  wedded  wife, 

says  the  poet. 

Unfortunately,  talent  and  the  virtues  did  not 
always  go  together,  and  it  is  impossible,  at  this 
distance,  to  determine  with  any  certainty  who  were 
good  and  who  were  not.  In  the  conservative  circles 
of  Athens,  intelligence  itself  was  a  vice  in  women, 
and  put  them  under  a  ban.  They  might  pray  to 
Athena,  and  offer  incense  to  her,  and  embroider  her 
robes,  but  it  would  not  do  to  take  this  personification 
of  wisdom  and  knowledge  for  a  model ;  indeed,  it  is 

84 


AND   THE    FIRST   SALON 

not  quite  clear  why  so  dangerous  a  representative 
of  the  sex  that  was  thought  to  have  no  intellect 
worth  considering  should  have  been  chosen  to  pre- 
side over  all  the  Attic  divinities.  There  was  a  time, 
according  to  Varro,  when  it  had  been  customary  for 
women  to  take  part  with  men  in  public  councils. 
In  the  early  ages  they  voted  to  name  Athens  after 
Athena,  outvoting  the  men  by  one.  Poseidon  was 
angry,  and  the  sea  overflowed.  To  appease  the 
god,  the  citizens  imposed  a  punishment  on  their 
wives.  They  were  to  lose  their  votes,  the  children 
were  to  receive  no  more  their  mother's  name,  and 
they  were  no  longer  called  Athenians.  Perhaps 
this  is  why  they  were  relegated  forever  after  to 
ignorance  and  obscurity.  Athena,  however,  retained 
her  power,  and  men  still  worshiped  the  gray-eyed 
goddess  in  the  abstract,  as  their  fathers  had  done, 
doubtless  quite  content  that  the  superfluous  wisdom 
of  woman  should  be  given  a  pedestal  so  high  and 
remote  that  it  was  not  likely  to  cause  serious  incon- 
venience in  family  relations.  But  their  personal 
devotion  was  largely  reserved  for  Aphrodite,  who 
was  more  beautiful  and  facile,  if  not  so  wise,  and  still 
less  fit  to  be  held  up  as  a  worthy  example  for  her  sex. 
The  race  had  not  greatly  changed  since  its  men  went 
to  their  death  for  the  "  divine  Helen,"  and  thought 
the  world  well  lost  for  a  sight  of  her  radiant  beauty. 
The  witty  Phryne,  whose  exquisite  face  and  form 
was  made  immortal  by  Apelles  and  Praxiteles,  was 

85 


THE   ATHENIAN  WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

given  a  statue  of  gold  between  two  kings  at  Delphi. 
In  the  cypress-grove  at  Corinth  there  was  a  monu- 
ment to  the  beautiful  Lais,  who  had  enriched  the 
city  with  fine  architecture.  Lamia  built  a  splendid 
portico  for  the  people  of  Sicyon,  and  a  temple  at 
Athens  was  consecrated  to  her  under  the  name  of 
Aphrodite.  One  of  the  most  striking  and  costly 
monuments  in  Greece  was  also  erected  there  to 
Pythionice.  The  wit  and  fascination  of  Glycera 
brought  her  the  honors  due  to  a  queen.  Some  of 
her  letters  to  Menander  were  preserved,  and  they 
were  said  to  show  not  only  a  tender  and  delicate 
sentiment,  but  a  fine  intellectual  sympathy  with  her 
poet  lover.  No  doubt  the  tributes  offered  to  the 
notoriously  dissolute  women  were  largely  the  ex- 
pression of  a  beauty-loving  people  who  cherished 
"  art  for  art's  sake." 

But  there  were  other  women  with  serious  gifts  of 
a  high  order,  who  were  far  less  likely  to  be  honored 
with  temples  and  statues.  Leontium,  the  disciple 
and  favorite  of  Epicurus,  wrote  a  treatise  against 
Theophrastus  that  was  quoted  by  Cicero  as  a  model 
of  style.  She  had  a  thoughtful  face,  and  was  painted 
in  a  meditative  attitude  by  Theodorus.  It  matters 
little  whether  Diotima  was  Arcadian  priestess  or 
philosopher;  she  was  the  friend  of  Socrates,  the 
counselor  of  the  wisest  and  subtlest  of  men.  It  was 
her  high  and  spiritual  conception  of  love  that  he 
quoted  at  the  famous  symposium  of  Plato,  raising 

86 


AND   THE    FIRST   SALON 

the  conversation  from  a  curious  blending  of  unholy 
passion  and  metaphysical  subtlety  to  a  region  of 
light.  Famous  among  the  disciples  of  Pythagoras 
was  Perictione,  who  attracted  the  attention  of  Aris- 
totle by  writing  on  such  grave  subjects  as  "  Wis- 
dom "  and  "The  Harmony  of  Woman."  She 
was  duly  conservative,  and  accepted  the  passive 
position  of  her  sex,  dwelling  on  their  need  of  a  for- 
bearing spirit.  Possibly  this  amiable  attitude  ac- 
counts in  part  for  the  kind  consideration  of  the 
philosopher.  More  advanced  and  less  popular  was 
Hipparchia,  the  wife  of  Crates,  an  eminent  Cynic, 
who  called  the  statue  of  Phryne  "  a  votive  offering 
of  the  profligacy  of  Greece."  She  recognized  virtue 
as  the  supreme  end  of  life,  but  contended  that  "  vir- 
tue is  the  same  in  a  man  as  in  a  woman."  To 
Theodorus  she  said  :  "  What  Theodorus  is  not  wrong 
in  doing,  the  same  thing  Hipparchia  ought  not  to  be 
wrong  in  doing."  That  she  was  severely  attacked 
goes  without  saying.  Such  sentiments  were  subver- 
sive of  the  inalienable  rights  of  man,  in  the  code  of 
the  classic  world.  It  was  easier  and  more  agreeable 
to  discredit  the  woman  than  to  raise  their  own  stan- 
dards. Themista,  the  wife  of  Leon,  was  a  philoso- 
pher, corresponded  with  Epicurus,  and  was  called 
by  Cicero  "  a  sort  of  female  Solon."  Lastheneia 
was  a  pupil  of  Plato,  and  went  so  far  as  to  disguise 
herself  in  a  man's  robes  in  order  to  hear  him  dis- 
course at  the  Academy. 

87 


THE   ATHENIAN   WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

Perhaps  it  is  unfair  to  group  these  women  to- 
gether. They  were  of  different  shades,  and  not  all 
contemporary.  Some  of  them  were  Athenians. 
Of  most  of  them  we  have  no  knowledge  except  such 
as  may  be  gathered  from  a  few  passing  words  in 
connection  with  famous  men,  and  even  this  is  in- 
volved in  doubt  and  contradiction.  What  were  the 
attractions  of  Archaianassa,  to  whom  Plato  wrote 
sonnets,  or  did  she  ever  exist  outside  of  the  realm 
of  dreams  ? 

For  dear  to  me  Theoris  is, 

says  Sophocles.  Did  he  find  in  her  the  talent  that 
inspired  his  own?  And  what  was  the  secret  of 
Archippa's  influence,  that  he  should  have  left  her  his 
fortune  ?  Or  is  she,  too,  a  myth  ?  Nor  can  we 
divine  the  gifts  that  drew  the  eloquent  Isocrates  to 
Metaneira. 

How  far  the  honor  accorded  to  so  many  of  the 
hetasrae  was  due  to  their  talents  and  how  far  to 
their  personal  fascination,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  In 
many  cases,  beauty  was  their  chief  distinction. 
Some  are  known  to  have  been  fair  and  frail ;  others 
were  apparently  of  good  character  as  well  as  bril- 
liant intellect.  A  poet  of  the  time  speaks  of  one  as 

Pure  and  on  virtue's  strictest  model  formed. 

It  would  not  be  quite  safe,  however,  to  measure 
them  by  our  standards.  We  may  go  to  the  Greeks 

88 


AND   THE    FIRST    SALON 

for  art  and  literature,  but  not  for  morals.  Things 
that  we  consider  criminal,  they  looked  upon  as  quite 
natural  and  innocent.  No  doubt,  too,  many  things 
which  we  consider  so  harmless  as  to  pass  unnoted 
would  have  been  censured  by  them  as  violations  of 
all  laws  of  decorum. 


Ill 

THERE  was  one  woman,  however,  whose  individu- 
ality was  too  strong  to  be  altogether  merged  into 
that  of  the  man  with  whom  her  name  is  associated. 
Aspasia  stands  supreme,  after  Sappho,  as  the  most 
brilliant  and  lettered  woman  of  classic  times.  The 
center  of  a  circle  so  luminous  that  the  ages  have  not 
greatly  dimmed  its  radiance,  she  is  likely  to  live  as 
long  as  the  world  cherishes  the  memory  of  its  great- 
est men.  She  was  the  prototype  of  the  charming 
and  intellectual  women  who  made  the  literary  courts 
of  the  Renaissance  so  famous  two  thousand  years 
afterward  ;  also  of  the  more  familiar  ones  who  shone 
as  leaders  of  the  powerful  salons  of  France  a  century 
or  two  later.  Even  to-day  the  aspiring  woman  who 
dreams  of  reviving  the  social  triumphs  of  her  sex 
recalls  the  golden  days  of  Athens  and  wonders  what 
magic  drew  so  many  of  the  great  poets,  statesmen, 
and  philosophers  of  the  world  from  the  groves  of 
the  Academy,  the  colonnades  of  the  Lyceum,  the 
porticos,  and  the  gymnasia,  to  pour  their  treasures 

89 


THE    ATHENIAN   WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

of  wit  and  thought  at  the  feet  of  the  fair  Ionian. 
She  may  remember,  too,  that  this  fascinating  woman 
was  not  only  the  high  priestess  who  presided  at  the 
birth  of  society  as  we  know  it,  but  was  also  the  first 
to  assert  the  right  of  the  wife  to  be  educated,  that 
she  might  live  as  the  peer  and  companion  of  her 
husband,  not  as  his  slave. 

Little  is  known  of  the  facts  of  her  life.  She  was 
the  first  woman  who  came  from  Miletus,  the  plea- 
sure-loving city  of  roses,  and  song,  and  beautiful 
maidens.  Why  or  how  she  left  her  home  we  are 
not  told,  but  there  is  a  vague  tradition  that  her  pa- 
rents were  dead  and  that  she  went  away  with  the 
famous  Thargelia,  whose  vigorous  intellect,  together 
with  her  wit  and  beauty,  made  her  a  political  power 
in  Thessaly  and  the  wife  of  one  of  its  kings  during 
the  Persian  wars,  though  her  personality  is  the  faint- 
est of  shadows  to-day.  It  is  supposed  that  Aspasia 
was  young,  scarcely  more  than  twenty,  when  she 
came  to  Athens,  possibly  to  live  with  a  relative ; 
but  this  is  only  a  surmise.  As  a  foreigner,  whatever 
her  rank,  she  was  outside  the  pale  of  good  society. 
The  high-born  Athenian  women  looked  askance  at 
her,  were  jealous  of  her,  and  said  wicked  things  about 
her.  To  be  sure,  the  all-powerful  Pericles  took  her 
to  his  home  and  called  her  his  wife,  but  she  was  not 
a  citizen  like  themselves,  and  could  not  lawfully  bear 
his  name. 

The  relation,  however,  left-handed  though  it  may 
90 


AND    THE    FIRST   SALON 

have  been,  was  a  recognized  and  permanent  one, 
not  less  regular  perhaps  than  the  morganatic  mar- 
riages of  royal  princes  to-day,  which  make  a  woman 
a  pure  and  legal  wife  but  never  a  queen.  So  rare 
was  the  devotion  of  the  grave  statesman  that  it  was 
thought  worthy  of  record,  and  it  was  a  matter  of 
gossip  that  he  kissed  Aspasia  when  he  went  out  and 
when  he  came  in — clearly  a  startling  innovation 
among  Athenian  husbands.  Still  more  astonishing 
was  the  fact  that  he  listened  to  her  counsel  and 
talked  with  her  on  State  affairs,  which,  according  to 
their  traditions,  no  reputable  woman  ought  to  know 
anything  about.  Plutarch  tells  us  that  some  went 
so  far  as  to  say  that  he  paid  court  to  her  on  account 
of  her  wisdom  and  political  sagacity.  Socrates  con- 
fesses his  own  indebtedness  to  her  in  the  use  of 
language,  and  says  that  she  made  many  great  ora- 
tors. He  thinks  it  no  wonder  that  Pericles  can 
speak,  as  he  has  so  excellent  a  mistress  in  the  art  of 
rhetoric,  one  who  could  even  write  his  speeches. 
He  was  himself  so  pleased  with  a  funeral  oration 
she  had  spoken  in  his  presence,  partly  from  previous 
thought  and  partly  from  the  inspiration  of  the  mo- 
ment, that  he  learned  it  by  heart.  A  friend  to 
whom  he  repeated  it  was  amazed  that  a  woman 
could  compose  such  a  speech,  and  Socrates  added 
that  he  might  recall  many  more  if  he  would  not 
tell.  This  special  address  was  such  a  masterpiece 
of  wisdom  and  eloquence  that  Pericles  was  asked  to 

91 


THE   ATHENIAN  WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

give  it  every  year.  As  he  was  quite  able  to  write 
his  own,  there  was  no  room  for  jealousy,  even  if 
Aspasia  sometimes  found  in  the  same  field  a  happy 
outlet  for  her  fine  talent  and  living  enthusiasm. 

All  this  points  to  a  strong  probability  that  the 
gifted  Milesian  came  to  Athens  to  teach  rhetoric  and 
other  arts  of  which  she  was  mistress,  as  a  French- 
woman  might  seek  her  fortune  in  our  owri  country 
to-day.  But  she  had  not  the  same  immunity  from 
criticism,  as  the  very  fact  of  her  talents,  and  her 
ability  to  utilize  them,  sufficed  to  put  her  under 
a  cloud.  This,  too,  might  account  for  the  wicked 
things  Aristophanes  said  of  her,  but  we  cannot 
imagine  that'  Socrates  would  have  advised  his 
friends  to  send  their  sons  to  her  for  training  had 
they  been  true.  He  knew  her  well,  had  profited  by 
her  instructions,  and  no  one  will  charge  him  with 
gallantry  or  the  disposition  to  give  undue  praise. 
He  was  essentially  a  truth-seeker.  It  is  a  matter  of 
note,  too,  that  the  philosophers  had  only  pleasant 
words  for  Aspasia.  Her  detractors  were  the  sati- 
rists and  comic  poets;  but  who  ever  went  to  either 
for  justice  or  truth?  She  was  clear-sighted,  pene- 
trating, and  versed  not  only  in  letters  but  in  civil 
affairs,  so  it  was  easy  enough  to  say  that  she  was 
the  power  behind  the  throne  in  the  Samian  and 
Peloponnesian  wars.  It  is  certain,  however,  that 
Pericles  was  too  wise  a  statesman  to  be  led  into  a 
war  by  any  one  against  his  judgment.  It  is  quite 

92 


AND    THE    FIRST   SALON 

likely  that  she  had  young  girls  in  her  house  who 
came  to  be  instructed  in  the  refinements  and  ameni- 
ties of  life,  as  poetic  maidens  had  flocked  to  Sappho 
from  all  the  isles  of  the  sea  a  century  or  so  before. 
This  again  was  a  fruitful  source  of  calumny  and 
satire.  But  it  is  impossible  to  read  the  Attic  co- 
medians without  a  conviction  that  they  measured 
every  one  by  their  own  moral  standards,  which  were 
of  the  lowest  and  coarsest.  A  woman  who  could 
discuss  philosophy  with  Socrates  and  Anaxagoras, 
art  with  Phidias,  poetry  with  Sophocles  and  Eu- 
ripides, politics  and  history  with  Thucydides,  if  occa- 
sion offered,  and  affairs  of  the  gay  world  with  the 
young  Alcibiades,  was  not  likely  to  escape  the 
tongue  of  scandal  among  people  who  numbered 
the  silent  subjection  of  women  among  their  most 
sacred  traditions. 

Of  the  beauty  of  Aspasia  we  are  not  sure.  We 
hear  of  her  "  honey-colored  "  or  golden  hair,  of  her 
"small,  high-arched  foot,"  of  her  "silvery  voice"; 
but  no  one  of  her  time  has  told  us  that  she  was 
beautiful.  There  is  a  bust  on  which  her  name  is 
inscribed,  but  it  gives  us  no  clue  to  the  living  charm 
that  held  great  men  captive.  Did  this  charm  lie  in 
the  depth  and  brilliancy  of  the  veiled  eyes,  in  the 
tender  curve  of  the  half-voluptuous  mouth,  or  in 
the  subtle  and  variable  light  of  the  soul  that  forever 
eludes  the  chilling  marble?  Another  bust,  sup- 
posed to  represent  her,  has  a  gentler  quality,  a  finer 

93 


THE   ATHENIAN  WOMAN,   ASPASIA, 

distinction,  with  a  faint  shadow  on  the  thoughtful 
face.  But  the  secret  of  her  power  did  not  lie  in  any 
rare  perfection  of  form  or  feature.  Perhaps  this 
secret  is  always  difficult  to  define.  Of  her  fascinat- 
ing personality  we  are  left  in  no  doubt.  With  the 
qualities  of  esprit  that  belonged  to  her  race,  and  all 
the  winning  graces  of  her  Ionian  culture,  she  com- 
bined an  intellect  of  firm  and  substantial  fiber.  She 
was  noted  for  the  divining  spirit  which  instinctively 
recognized  the  special  gifts  of  her  friends ;  she  had, 
too,  the  tact  and  finesse  to  make  the  most  of  them. 
This  is  par  excellence  the  talent  of  the  social  leader. 
The  salon  of  Aspasia  was  the  first  of  which  we 
have  any  record.  The  stars  of  the  Attic  world 
gathered  there,  men  who  were  in  the  advance-guard 
of  Hellenic  thought.  Reclining  on  the  many-colored 
cushions  beneath  the  white  pillars,  with  pictured 
walls  and  rare  tapestries  and  exquisite  statues  of 
Greek  divinities  about  them,  they  talked  of  the  new 
temples ;  of  the  last  word  in  art ;  of  the  triumph  of 
Sophocles,  who  had  just  won  the  prize  of  tragedy  in 
the  theater  of  Dionysus ;  perhaps  of  ^Eschylus,  who 
had  gone  away  broken-hearted ;  of  happiness, 
morals,  love,  and  immortality.  The  thoughtful 
woman  who  sat  there  radiant  in  her  saffron  draperies 
was  not  silent.  Men  marveled  at  her  eager  intel- 
lect, her  grasp  of  Athenian  possibilities ;  they  were 
charmed  with  her  graceful  ways  and  musical  speech. 
We  hear  of  symposia  in  other  houses,  where  a  Theo- 

94 


AND    THE    FIRST   SALON 

dota  dances,  the  free  wit  of  Lais  flashes,  and  con- 
versation glides  on  a  low  and  vulgar  level,  but  no 
wife  or  daughter  ever  appears.  There  is  nothing  to 
indicate  that  the  coterie  of  Aspasia  was  otherwise 
than  decorous.  Music  there  was,  as  the  accom- 
plished Ionian  played  the  cithara  with  skill  and 
taste.  Wit  there  must  have  been,  as  no  company 
of  Athenians  was  ever  without  it.  But  more  was 
said  of  its  serious  side.  One  of  the  sons  of  Pericles, 
angry  because  his  father  would  not  give  him  all  the 
money  he  wished,  ridiculed  this  circle  of  philoso- 
phers and  the  hours  they  spent  in  discussing  theo- 
ries or  splitting  metaphysical  hairs.  Their  learned 
disquisitions  were  not  at  all  to  the  taste  of  the  plea- 
sure-loving youth. 

A  few  men  had  the  courage  to  bring  their  wives, 
and  Aspasia  talked  to  them  of  their  duties  and  the 
need  of  cultivating  their  minds.  Nor  did  she  forget 
the  value  of  manners  and  the  graces.  It  is  said  that 
she  wrote  a  book  on  cosmetics ;  but  all  her  teaching, 
so  far  as  we  know  it,  went  to  show  that  personal 
charm  lay  not  so  much  in  physical  beauty  as  in  the 
culture  of  the  intellect.  The  few  direct  words  we 
have  from  her  lips  prove  that,  with  a  clear  sense  of 
values,  she  was  the  true  child  of  an  age  and  race 
that  was  singularly  devoid  of  sentiment.  If  she 
taught  Socrates  in  some  things,  she  was  evidently 
his  pupil  in  others.  This  is  curiously  illustrated  in 
an  anecdote  related  by  ^schines. 

95 


THE    ATHENIAN  WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

"  Tell  me,"  says  Aspasia,  one  day,  to  the  wife  of 
Xenophon,  "  if  your  neighbor  had  finer  gold  than 
you  have,  whether  you  would  prefer  her  gold  or 
your  own." 

"  I  should  prefer  hers,"  was  the  reply. 

"  Suppose  that  she  had  dresses  and  ornaments  of 
more  value  than  yours ;  would  you  prefer  your  own 
or  hers?  " 

"  Hers,  to  be  sure." 

"  If  she  had  a  better  husband  than  you  have, 
which  would  you  choose?" 

The  lady  blushed  and  was  silent. 

The  hostess  then  turned  to  the  husband  with  like 
questions. 

"  I  ask  you,  O  Xenophon,  whether,  if  your  neigh- 
bor had  a  better  horse  than  yours,  you  would  pre- 
fer your  own  or  his." 

"  Certainly  his,"  was  the  prompt  answer. 

"  If  he  had  a  better  farm  than  yours,  which 
would  you  wish  to  own?" 

"  Beyond  doubt,  that  which  is  best." 

"  Suppose  that  he  had  a  better  wife  than  you  have, 
would  you  prefer  his  wife?" 

The  conversation  became  embarrassing,  and 
Xenophon  was  discreetly  silent. 

The  conclusion  was  obvious.  This  too  logical 
questioner  advised  those  present  to  order  their  lives 
so  that  there  should  be  no  more  admirable  woman 
or  more  excellent  man ;  then  each  would  always 

96 


AND   THE    FIRST   SALON 

prefer  the  other  to  any  one  else — a  piece  of  wise 
counsel  that  might  be  profitably  considered,  in  spite 
of  its  veiled  sophistry.  Evidently  she  did  not 
regard  love  as  a  flame  that  burns  without  fuel, 
though  in  her  notions  of  human  perfectibility  she 
makes  small  account  of  the  quality  of  the  material. 
This  parlor-talk  is  a  trifle  didactic,  and  lacks  the 
modern  elements  of  popularity,  but  it  is  not  in  the 
least  the  talk  of  such  a  woman  as  the  enemies  of 
Aspasia  pictured  her.  It  was  clearly  a  party  of 
innovation  that  she  led,  but  it  was  not  a  party  of 
corrupt  tastes.  It  was  for  her  opinions  that  she 
suffered.  Just  what  connection  moral  turpitude  has 
with  a  question  of  the  infallibility  of  any  special 
form  of  belief  is  not  apparent,  but  a  charge  of 
impiety  cast  a  darker  shadow  upon  her  reputation. 
In  this  case  it  meant  little  more  than  a  doubt  as  to 
the  divinity  of  their  quarrelsome  and  immoral  gods, 
which  we  should  consider  highly  creditable.  She 
was  too  rational  for  a  good  orthodox  pagan.  Or  it 
may  have  meant  simply  that  her  house  was  a  ren- 
dezvous for  the  free-thinking  philosophers.  Here, 
too,  was  a  woman  who  took  the  unheard-of  liberty 
of  presiding  over  her  husband's  house,  making  it 
agreeable  for  his  friends  and  attractive  for  himself. 
She  had  put  dangerous  notions  into  the  heads  of 
Athenian  wives.  Who  was  this  impertinent  for- 
eigner, that  she  should  presume  to  tell  them  how  to 
please  their  husbands?  How,  indeed,  could  they 
7  97 


THE    ATHENIAN   WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

please  them  better  than  to  keep  a  decorous  silence 
in  their  apartments,  and  let  their  noble  lords  bring 
dancing-  and  talking- women  to  their  banquets,  and 
do  otherwise  as  they  liked?  Of  course  she  did  not 
respect  the  gods,  and  deserved  death. 

And  so  she  was  taken  before  the  judges.  The 
dignified  and  austere  Pericles  wept  as  he  pleaded  her 
cause,  and  his  tears  won  it.  She  was  released,  but 
Anaxagoras,  who  was  under  the  same  charge  of  im- 
piety because  he  gave  natural  causes  to  apparently 
supernatural  things,  as  Galileo  did  centuries  later, 
thought  it  safe  to  go  away  until  the  fickle  Athe- 
nians, the  French  of  the  classic  world,  found  some- 
thing else  to  occupy  them. 

Without  the  poetic  genius  or  the  passionate 
intensity  of  Sappho,  Aspasia  seems  to  have  had 
greater  breadth  and  largeness  of  mind,  with  the 
calm  judgment  and  clear  reason  that  belong  to  a 
more  sophisticated  age.  She  was  evidently  solid  as 
well  as  brilliant.  That  she  was  eminently  tactful 
and  had  a  great  deal  of  the  Greek  subtlety  counted 
for  much  in  her  success.  She  had  also  the  perfect 
comprehension  of  genius,  which  is  an  inspiration, 
and  nearly  allied  to  genius  itself.  In  the  vast  plans 
for  the  glory  of  Athens,  she  could  hardly  have  been 
ignored  by  the  man  who  adored  her  and  consulted 
her  on  the  gravest  matters.  It  is  not  as  the  Om- 
phale  to  this  Hercules,  the  Hera  to  this  Zeus,  that 
she  has  come  down  to  us,  save  in  the  jeer  of  the 

98 


AND    THE    FIRST    SALON 

satirist,  but  as  the  watchful  Egeria,  who  whispered 
prophetic  words  of  wisdom  in  the  ears  of  the  great 
Athenian.  Who  knows  how  far  the  world  owes  to 
her  fine  insight  and  critical  taste  the  superb  flower- 
ing of  art  which  left  an  immortal  heritage  to  all  the 
ages? 

With  the  death  of  Pericles  and  the  dispersion  of 
the  distinguished  group  that  surrounded  him,  As- 
pasia  disappears.  There  was  no  place  at  that  time 
for  talents  like  hers,  apart  from  a  great  man's  pro- 
tection. It  was  rumored  that  she  afterward  married 
a  rich  but  obscure  citizen,  whom  she  raised  by  her 
abilities  to  a  high  position  in  the  State,  though  he 
did  not  live  long  enough  to  reap  much  glory  from 
it.  The  affair  savors  of  the  mythical,  and  perhaps 
we  are  safe  in  giving  it  little  credence.  We  should 
like  to  believe  that  the  woman  who  had  been  blessed 
with  the  love  of  a  Pericles  could  never  console  her- 
self with  a  lesser  man. 

Of  versatile  gifts  and  endless  shades  of  tempera- 
ment, teacher,  thinker,  artist  in  words  and  life,  critic, 
musician,  friend  of  women  and  inspirer  of  men,  but 
before  all  things  a  harmony  uniting  the  grace  and 
sensibility  of  her  sex  with  a  masculine  strength  of 
intellect,  this  gracious  Ionian  stands  with  Sappho 
on  the  pinnacle  of  Hellenic  culture,  each  in  her 
own  field  the  highest  feminine  representative  of  an 
esthetic  race.  Her  mission  was  not  an  ethical  one, 
and  she  cannot  be  so  judged ;  but  against  the  cen- 

99 


THE    ATHENIAN   WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

sure  of  the  enemies  and  rivals  of  Pericles,  as  well  as 
of  her  own,  we  have  abundant  evidence  that,  in  her 
virtues,  as  in  her  talents,  she  surpassed  the  stan- 
dards of  her  class  and  time.  It  was  not  of  a  light- 
minded  woman  that  Pericles  said  when  dying : 
"  Athens  intrusted  her  greatness  and  Aspasia  her 
happiness  to  me." 

IV 

IT  is  not  unlikely  that  Aspasia  had  much  to  do 
with  modifying  the  low  views  held  regarding  her 
sex,  and  with  promoting  the  discussions  of  the  phi- 
losophers who  came  after  her.  Socrates  had  her 
example  before  him  when  he  said  that  the  talent  of 
women  was  not  at  all  inferior  to  that  of  men,  though 
they  lacked  bodily  vigor  and  strength.  Plato  ac- 
corded them  the  same  talents  as  men,  though  less 
in  degree;  indeed,  he  went  so  far  as  to  advise  a 
common  training,  as  in  Sparta,  on  the  ground  that 
gifts  are  diffused  equally  between  the  sexes.  Aris- 
totle is  less  generous  to  women.  He  accords  them 
weaker  reasoning  powers,  and  insists  upon  their 
silent  and  passive  obedience;  but  he  preaches  to 
men  justice,  appreciation,  and  the  sanctity  of  mar- 
riage. On  the  whole,  from  our  point  of  view,  he 
paints  a  more  agreeable  society  than  Plato,  in  spite 
of  the  greater  equality  taught  by  the  latter.  The 
satirists  were  not  slow  to  take  up  the  matter,  and 

100 


AND    THE    FIRST    SALON 

Aristophanes  drew  a  doleful  picture  of  women  don- 
ning male  attire  and  going  to  the  agora  to  reform 
the  State,  while  their  husbands  were  left  to  look  after 
things  at  home.  They  start  out  with  the  idea  of 
making  everybody  happy.  Thefe  are  to  be  no 
rich,  no  poor,  no  thefts,  no  slanders,  no  miseries. 
Praxagora  pleads  her  cause  with  all  the  force  and 
energy  of  the  modern  woman  who  seeks  political 
rights,  but  she  is  less  poised  and  goes  further.  The 
State  is  to  be  intrusted  to  women.  They  are  suc- 
cessful managers  at  home  and  have  shown  their 
superior  gifts  of  administration.  In  any  case,  they 
could  not  do  worse  than  men  have  done.  They 
end,  however,  by  voting  unlimited  communism  and 
outdoing  the  demagogues.  This  "  woman's  con- 
gress "  was  not  an  unqualified  success ;  indeed,  it 
was  a  disgraceful  failure,  -as  it  was  intended  to  be : 
but  it  cast  into  like  ridicule  the  philosophers  and 
the  "  strong-minded "  women,  among  whom  As- 
pasia  was  doubtless  included,  as  she  had  convictions, 
though  the  conversations  in  her  salon  probably 
marked  the  limit  of  their  public  expression.  Who 
the  others  were  we  do  not  know,  but  it  is  clear 
that  there  was  an  undercurrent  of  "  divine  discon- 
tent "  among  the  women  of  two  thousand  years  ago. 
History  repeats  itself,  and  the  "  woman  question  "  is 
not  a  new  one,  though  we  have  made  immense 
strides  in  the  rational  consideration  of  it. 

It  is  sufficiently  clear  that  the  harmonious  devel- 
101 


THE    ATHENIAN   WOMAN,    ASPASIA, 

opment  of  the  Hellenic  women  was  in  proportion  to 
their  liberty  of  action,  and  the  most  fault  was  found 
with  them  where  they  had  the  least  freedom.  If 
the  spirited  women  of  Sparta  had  been  born  in  con- 
servative Athens  the  world  might  never  have  known 
that  they  were  capable  of  so  much  strength  and 
heroism.  The  sparks  hidden  in  their  cramped  souls 
would  have  gone  out  for  lack  of  air.  If  the  secluded 
Athenian  woman  had  been  born  in  Sparta,  who  can 
say  that  she  might  not  have  been  as  clever  as  Gorge, 
as  brave  as  Cratesiclea,  and  as  independent  as  Lam- 
pito?  It  is  possible  that  the  genius  of  Sappho 
would  have  been  smothered  in  the  social  atmosphere 
of  either  place.  There  is  ample  evidence  that  the 
intellects  of  Greek  women  expanded  fast  enough 
when  the  conventional  pressure  was  even  partly 
removed.  Nor  is  it  true  that  they  retrograded  in 
morals  as  they  advanced  in  intelligence.  Never  did 
the  Attic  poets  point  their  shafts  of  satire  so  sharply 
as  against  the  follies  of  the  ignorant  women  who 
were  limited  mainly  to  their  apartments,  far  from 
the  possible  corruption  of  knowledge  or  the  visible 
temptation  to  sin.  The  tone  of  morality  was  purer 
even  among  the  free  Spartan  women,  who  had  more 
education  but  less  surveillance. 

There  is  nothing  more  vitally  significant  in  the 
lives  of  Athenian  wives  than  the  extent  to  which 
they  saw  themselves  set  aside  and  neglected  for 
foreigners  of  more  brilliant  accomplishments,  be- 

IO2 


AND    THE    FIRST    SALON 

cause  they  could  not  or  would  not  break  the  bonds 
of  fashionable  tradition,  which  decreed  for  them 
silence  and  seclusion.  In  primitive  conditions  where 
no  one  is  educated,  the  virtues  may  suffice  for  com- 
panionship ;  but  at  a  certain  stage  of  civilization, 
when  men  read  and  think,  the  woman  who  does  not 
is  sure  to  be  practically  excluded  from  his  society, 
though  she  may  still  be  his  housekeeper  or  the  toy 
of  an  idle  hour.  Athens  in  the  height  of  her  glory 
presented  the  strange  anomaly  of  a  respectable  illit- 
erate class  from  which  the  mothers  of  future  citizens 
must  be  taken,  and  an  educated  class  without  civil 
rights  who  could  not  marry  Athenians.  If  the  lat- 
ter had  any  domestic  ties  at  all,  they  were  forced 
into  morganatic  relations.  This  did  not  of  necessity 
imply  laxity  of  character ;  indeed,  it  was  not  always 
condemned  by  Athenian  moralists.  But  no  class 
could  long  maintain  any  high  standard  of  virtue 
under  such  conditions.  They  opened  the  way  for 
endless  license.  The  gay  and  dissolute  women 
from  the  East  flocked  to  the  Hellenic  cities,  and  in 
the  reckless  corruption  that  followed,  wise  men  trace 
a  potent  cause  of  Athenian  decline. 


103 


REVOLT  OF  THE  ROMAN  WOMEN 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 


•    The  Woman  Question  an  Old  One    • 

Character  and  Virtues  of  Early  Roman  Women 

•    Instances  of  Heroism    • 

•    Their  Disabilities    • 

•    Primitive  Roman  Morals    • 

•    Servitude  of  Wives    •    Husband  Poisoning    • 

•  The  Oppian  Law    •   The  Revolt    • 

•  Crabbed  Cato    •    Change  in  Laws    • 
•    Second  Revolt    •    Hortensia    • 

•    The  Marriage  Question    • 

•  Intellectual  Movement    •    Cornelia    • 


REVOLT   OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 


OT  long  ago  an  able  and  eloquent 
man,  well  known  in  political  life, 
made  the  astonishing  statement  that 
from  the  time  Eve  left  paradise  to 
the  advent  of  the  modern  champion 
of  her  sex,  "  woman  was  apparently  content  with 
her  subordination."  It  is  not  proposed  here  to 
enter  at  all  into  the  present  phases  of  a  subject 
that  has  been  sufficiently  discussed,  or  to  define  the 
precise  point  where  those  who  belong  to  what  our 
noble  friend  is  pleased  to  call  the  "  inferior  and 
defective  half  of  the  race  "  may  with  reason  protest ; 
but  as  a  matter  of  fac^ there  has  never  been  so  pro- 
longed and  serious  a  commotion  on  the  much- 
talked-of  "  woman  question  "  as  in  the  Rome  of  two 
thousand  years  ago ;  and  perhaps  no  recorded  mo- 
ment in  the  history  of  women  has  been  of  such  far- 

107 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

reaching  importance  as  those  struggles  for  justice 
and  recognition.  With  possibly  one  exception,  the 
points  at  issue  were  not  quite  the  same  as  in  the 
middle  of  the  nineteenth  century,  but  they  involved 
many  of  the  same  privileges.  The  contention  con- 
cerned not  only  a  woman's  right  to  a  voice  in  the 
control  of  her  own  property,  but  to  some  considera- 
tion in  marriage,  and  a  measure  of  personal  liberty. 
The  laws  that  grew  out  of  it,  in  the  slow  process  of 
years,  have  served  as  a  basis  for  the  codes  that  have 
more  or  less  governed  civilized  countries  ever  since, 
and  though  these  have  often  deviated  far  from  the 
liberal  standard  of  the  statutes  of  Justinian,  they 
have  never  fallen  permanently  to  the  old  level.  A 
certain  marked  resemblance  in  the  character  and 
growth  of  the  Roman  and  the  Anglo-Saxon  woman 
gives  us  a  special  interest  in  these  controversies  and 
their  practical  outcome?] 

That  the  Roman  woman  had  ample  cause  for  pro- 
test could  hardly  be  questioned  to-day,  even  by  the 
most  determined  advocate  of  the  old  order  of  things. 
The  contrast  between  the  character  and  ability  so 
conspicuously  shown  by  what  she  did  at  various 
times  for  her  country,  and  the  humiliation  of  her 
position,  was  too  great.  In  the  qualities  of  tem- 
perament and  imagination  which,  if  given  free  scope, 
make  poets  and  artists,  the  Grecian  women  sur- 
passed her.  But  the  very  traits  of  sensibility  that 
constituted  their  fascination  rendered  them  an  easy 

1 08 


REVOLT    OF    THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

prey  to  the  rule  of  a  master.  Their  chief  legacy  to 
posterity  was  an  esthetic  one.  The  talent  of  the 
Roman  woman  was  of  another  sort.  She  was  of  a 
masterful  type,  striking  in  physique,  strong  in  pur- 
pose, clear  in  judgment,  with  the  pride  and  dignity 
of  a  race  born  to  rule  the  world.  It  was  through 
her  practical  wisdom  in  directing  affairs,  together 
with  her  courage,  foresight,  and  indomitable  will, 
that  she  gained  in  the  end  a  degree  of  indepen- 
dence which  perhaps  we  should  hardly  call  by  that 
name  to-day,  but  which  was  relative  freedom  and 
left  a  permanent  trace  on  after  ages. 

Of  the  heroism,  political  sagacity,  and  moral  value 
of  the  Roman  women  we  have  abundant  evidence, 
but  it  is  difficult  to  catch  the  outline  of  faces  seen  in 
half-lights,  or  of  characters  revealed  only  on  one 
side.  They  did  not  write  of  themselves,  or  of  each 
other,  as  women  of  later  and,  to  some  extent,  even 
of  earlier  ages  have  done.  There  was  no  Sappho  to 
sing  of  their  joys  and  sorrows,  or  give  us  a  clue  to 
what  they  thought  and  felt.  Men  who  wrote  freely 
of  affairs  reserved  small  space  for  them,  so  we  know 
little  of  their  personal  life,  except  through  passing 
glimpses  in  a  few  private  letters,  and  the  cynical  if 
not  malicious  pictures  of  satirists.  The  Romans 
were  not  a  creative  or  imaginative  race,  and  have 
left  us  none  of  the  great  ideals  of  womanhood  that 
grace  the  pages  of  the  Greek  poets.  No  Helen  with 
her  divine  beauty  and  charm,  no  Antigone  with 

109 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

her  strength  of  sacrifice,  no  Andromache  with  her 
tender  and  winning  personality,  shows  us  the  man- 
ner of  woman  that  lived  in  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
men.  But  if  the  delicacy  of  shading  which  reveals 
fine  complexities  of  character  is  wanting,  we  have  a 
few  records  of  brave  deeds  and  individual  virtues 
that  are  likely  to  stand  as  long  as  the  world  to  show 
us  the  quality  that  made  them  possible.  Alcestis 
going  serenely  to  her  death  for  her  weak  and  selfish 
lord  is  not  more  heroic  than  Lucretia,  who  saved  the 
falling  liberties  of  Rome  by  plunging  the  dagger  into 
her  heart  and  calling  upon  her  husband  to  avenge 
her  outraged  honor.  Iphigenia  is  not  a  more 
touching  figure  than  the  innocent  Virginia,  sacri- 
ficed, not  to  the  gods,  but  to  the  brutality  of  wicked 
men. 

From  Tanaquil,  whose  ambition  and  prophetic 
insight  led  the  first  Tarquin  to  leave  his  simple 
Etruscan  home  for  a  Roman  throne,  to  the  wise 
Livia,  who  shared  the  power  and  glory  of  Augustus 
for  more  than  half  a  century,  women  came  to  the 
front  in  many  a  public  crisis.  Men  gave  them  no 
real  liberty,  but  they  did  give  them  monuments. 
These  are  mostly  gone  now,  but  the  records  of 
them  are  left.  Standing  by  the  Capitol  to-day  and 
looking  across  the  crumbling  temples,  columns, 
statues,  and  arches  which  have  preserved  for  us  the 
memories  of  Old  Rome,  one  is  forcibly  reminded  of 
the  important  part  played  by  women  in  laying  the 

I IO 


REVOLT   OF   THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

foundations  of  the  long  faded  glory  that  still  lends 
these  ruins  so  melancholy  and  picturesque  a  charm. 
The  strength  and  courage  of  the  Roman  woman 
were  immortalized  in  the  equestrian  statue  of  the 
daring  Clcelia,  in  the  Via  Sacra,  that  stretches  be- 
fore us.  Not  far  off  was  the  temple  of  Juno,  where 
the  festivals  of  the  Matronalia  were  held  for  cen- 
turies, in  honor  of  the  women  who  settled  the  con- 
test between  the  Romans  and  the  Sabines.  Beyond 
the  walls  on  the  way  to  the  Alban  hills  was  the 
temple  of  Fortuna  Muliebris,  which  bore  lasting 
testimony  to  the  wisdom  and  patriotism  of  Valeria, 
its  first  priestess ;  also  to  the  gentle  but  powerful 
influence  of  Volumnia  and  Virgilia,  who,  led  by  her 
counsels,  saved  the  city  from  a  too  ambitious  son  and 
brother.  It  was  the  spirit  of  the  divine  Egeria  that 
whispered  prophetic  words  of  warning  to  Numa  in 
the  secluded  grotto  beyond  the  Aventine.  The 
Sibyls  held  the  secrets  of  divination,  and  in  the 
vaults  at  our  feet  they  deposited  the  books  that 
foretold  the  destinies  of  Rome. 

There  still  stands  the  little  temple  where  the 
white-robed  Vestals  watched  over  the  holy  Pal- 
ladium and  took  care  that  the  sacred  fire  should 
never  go  out  for  eleven  hundred  years.  Men  on  the 
heights  of  power  bowed  to  the  authority  of  these 
consecrated  women,  who  occupied  everywhere  the 
place  of  honor,  settled  disputes,  testified  without 
oath,  and  brought  pardon  even  to  a  criminal  who 

ill 


REVOLT   OF   THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

met  them  by  accident.  All  this,  whether  fact  or 
legend,  was  a  tacit  recognition  of  the  judgment, 
purity,  and  insight  of  woman.  '  It  might  not  be 
desirable  to  give  her  any  rights  civil  or  social,  but, 
as  a  sort  of  compensation,  men  quieted  their  con- 
sciences and  gave  themselves  a  comfortable  feeling 
of  being  just,  if  imdeed  they  ever  had  any  doubt  on 
that  point,  by  offering  her  more  or  less  theoretical 
honor,  and  a  shadowy  place  near  the  gods,  where 
they  could  avail  themselves  of  her  wisdom  without 
any  personal  inconvenience.  In  addition  to  this, 
they  built  her  a  little  temple  dedicated  to  the  god- 
dess -Viriplaca,  Appeaser  of  Husbands,  where  she 
could  solace  her  bruised  heart  by  confiding  her 
wrongs  and  sorrows  to  this  conciliatory  divinity,  who 
seems  to  have  been  useful  mainly  as  a  repository  of 
tears,  though  her  office  was  to  compose  differences. 
It  has  long  since  vanished,  but  it  speaks  volumes  for 
the  helplessness  of  women  that  it  ever  existed  at  all. 
It  told  the  tragedy  of  many  a  Roman  matron's  life. 

II 

\ 

WE  have  seen  a  little  of  what  these  women  were 

and  what  they  did.  What  they  suffered  can  be 
better  gathered  from  a  glance  at  their  position  and 
the  share  they  had  in  the  liberties  they  had  done  so 
much  to  foster  and  save.  Of  freedom  the  Roman 
woman  of  earlier  times  had  none  at  all,  though  she 

112 


REVOLT   OF   THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

was  not  secluded  like  her  Athenian  sisters,  and  her 
place  in  the  family  was  a  better  one?)  Her  charac- 
ter was  formed,  like  that  of  our  Puritan  mothers,  in 
times  of  toil  and  danger,  when  she  worked  side  by 
side  with  men  for  a  common  end,  and,  in  both,  their 
strength  of  purpose  and  spirit  of  heroic  sacrifice 
lasted  long  after  the  hard  conditions  of  primitive  life 
had  passed.  Besides,  the  natural  talent  for  admin- 
istration which  shone  through  all  her  limitations 
was  to  a  certain  degree  recognized  by  her  husband, 
and  she  was  often  his  counselor,  as  well  as  the  in- 
structor of  his  children,  even  beyond  the  seven 
years  prescribed.  But  all  this  did  not  suffice  to 
give  her  any  liberty  of  thought  or  action,  and  she 
was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  a  slave,  subject  to 
the  caprices  of  a  master  who  might  choose  to  be 
kind,  though,  in  case  he  did  not,  she  had  no  pro- 
tection either  in  law  or  custom ;  and  we  all  know 
how  soon  the  consciousness  of  absolute  power  warps 
the  sensibilities  of  even  the  gentlest.  -\  "  Created  to 
please  and  obey,"  says  Gibbon,  "  she  was  never  sup- 
posed to  have  reached  the  age  of  reason  and  experi- 
ence." She  was  under  guardianship  all  her  life, 
first  of  her  father,  then  of  her  husband,  and,  at  his 
death,  of  her  nearest  male  relative.  For  centuries 
she  had  no  right  to  her  own  property,  no  control  of 
her  own  person,  no  choice  in  marriage,  no  recourse 
against  cruelty  and  oppression.  "  The  husband  has 
absolute  power  over  the  wife,"  said  the  stern  old 

8 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

Cato ;  "  it  is  for  him  to  condemn  and  punish  her  for 
any  shameful  act,  such  as  taking  wine  or  violating 
the  moral  law."  To  show  what  was  possible  in  the 
way  of  surveillance,  we  are  told  that  he  was  in  the 
habit  of  kissing  her,  when  he  came  home,  to  satisfy 
himself  that  she  had  not  been  drinking.  One  man 
who  found  his  wife  sipping  wine  beat  her  to  death  ; 
another  dismissed  his  weaker  half  because  she  was 
seen  on  the  street  without  a  veil;  and  a  daring 
woman  was  sent  away  because  she  went  to  the  cir- 
cus without  leave.  Any  man  could  spend  his  wife's 
money,  beat  her,  sell  her,  give  her  to  some  one  else 
when  he  was  tired  of  her,  even  put  her  to  death. 
"  acting  as  accuser,  judge,  jury,  and  executioner./ 
In  the  last  case  it  was  better  to  call  her  friends  into 
council,  perhaps  even  necessary,  if  they  were  pow- 
erful enough  to  ask  for  an  explanation ;  but  "  a  man 
can  do  as  he  likes  with  his  own  "  was  sufficient  to 
cover  any  injustice  or  any  crime.  Even  in  the  last 
days  of  the  Republic,  when  the  laws  were  greatly 
modified,  the  younger  Cato,  a  man  noted  for  his 
stoical  virtues,  gave  his  wife  to  his  friend  Hortensius, 
and  after  his  death  took  her  back — with  a  dowry 
added.  What  she  thought  of  the  matter  signified  lit- 
tle. It  does  not  appear  that  she  was  even  consulted. 
The  family  was  the  unit,  and  the  man  was  the  family. 
It  is  fair  to  say  that  it  was  not  women  alone  who 
suffered  from  this  peculiar  phase  of  Roman  society, 
as  men  had  little  more  freedom  so  long  as  their 

114 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

fathers  lived  ;  but  it  fell  much  more  severely  on  those 
who  were,  in  the  nature  of  things,  more  helpless. 
The  best  they  could  hope  for  was  a  change  of  mas- 
ters, which  might  be  for  the  worse ;  and  who  was  to 
protect  them  from  their  irresponsible  protectors, 
even  with  all  the  safeguards  supposed  to  be  pro- 
vided by  law?  For  this  evidently  put  them  where 
Terence  did  the  philosophers,  along  with  horses  and 
hunting-dogs,  that  were  owned  but  not  necessarily 
considered. 

It  is  said,  in  praise  of  the  morals  of  Rome  during 
its  first  centuries,  that  there  was  not  a  divorce  for 
five  hundred  years.  The  exact  nature  of  this  merit 
is  seen  more  clearly  when  we  find  that  a  woman 
could  not  apply  for  a  divorce,  or  expect  a  redress  of 
any  wrong,  whatever  might  befall  her ;  while  a  man 
simply  sent  away  his  wife,  if  she  did  not  please  him, 
without  any  formalities,  and  with  slight,  if  any, 
penalties.  This  did  not  release  her  from  perpetual 
servitude,  though  he  was  free  to  follow  his  inclina- 
tions, amenable  to  no  law  and  no  obligation.  It 
is  true,  however,  that  Roman  matrons  prided  them- 
selves on  their  dignity.  A  certain  respect  was  ex- 
acted for  them,  and  familiarity  in  their  presence  was 
a  punishable  offense.  They  took  every  occasion 
also  to  show  appreciation  of  their  defenders.  They 
mourned  a  year  for  Brutus,  who  died  in  avenging 
Lucretia's  honor,  and  did  the  same  later  for  his  up- 
right colleague. 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

Many  years  afterward  there  was  a  temple  of  pa- 
trician chastity  in  which  women  assembled  for  sacred 
rites,  but  they  found  as  many  causes  for  contention 
as  some  of  our  societies  do  to-day.  One  noble 
matron  lost  caste  by  marrying  a  plebeian,  and  was 
excluded.  She  protested  in  vain.  Her  birth,  her 
spotless  fame,  her  devotion  to  her  husband,  counted 
for  nothing  so  long  as  that  husband  did  not  belong 
to  the  elect.  There  was  no  lack  of  spirited  words, 
but  the  matter  did  not  end  here.  This  slighted 
Virginia  started  another  association  on  her  own 
ground,  set  apart  a  chapel  in  her  house,  and  erected 
an  altar  to  plebeian  chastity.  The  standards  were 
to  be  much  higher.  She  called  together  the  ple- 
beian ladies,  and  proposed  that  they  emulate  one 
another  in  virtue,  as  men  did  in  valor.  No  woman 
of  doubtful  honor  or  twice  married  was  admitted. 
Unfortunately,  this  organization  in  time  opened  its 
doors  too  wide,  and  shared  the  fate  of  many  others. 

On  another  occasion  Quinta  Claudia,  one  of  the 
leading  matrons  of  Rome,  played  so  conspicuous  a 
part  that  she  won  immortality  and  a  statue  of  brass. 
She  was  at  the  head  of  a  delegation  appointed  to 
meet  the  Idaean  Mother,  who  was  expected  at  Ter- 
racina,  and  whose  coming  was  of  great  importance, 
as  various  strange  happenings  showed  conclusively 
that  Juno  was  angry  and  needed  propitiation.  It 
was  decided  that  the  most  virtuous  man  in  the 
State  should  accompany  the  matrons,  but  it  was 

116 


REVOLT    OF    THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

only  after  much  tribulation  that  the  Senate  found 
one  fit  to  be  intrusted  with  the  office,  and  this  was 
a  young  Scipio.  Unfortunately,  the  vessel  contain- 
ing the  image  went  aground,  and  the  augurs  de- 
clared that  only  a  woman  of  spotless  character  could 
dislodge  it.  Quinta  Claudia  was  equal  to  the  occa- 
sion. She  seized  the  oar,  with  a  prayer  to  Cybele  ; 
the  boat  moved  from  its  place  as  if  by  magic,  and 
was  safely  carried  to  its  destination.  The  lady's 
fair  fame,  which  had  been  a  little  clouded,  was  for- 
ever established  by  a  direct  interposition  of  the 
gods.  The  matrons  acquitted  themselves  with 
honor  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  goddess,  who  was  duly  installed  in  her  temple. 
All  this  goes  to  prove  that  the  women  of  twenty 
centuries  ago  often  combined  in  the  interest  of 
religion  and  morals,  and  were  quite  capable  of 
managing  public  as  well  as  private  affairs;  also 

Vthat  great  value  was  attached  to  the  austere  virtues. 
The  wise  Cato  is  said  to  have  erased  the  name  of  a 
Roman  from  the  list  of  senators  because  he  kissed 
his  wife  in  the  presence  of  his  daughters — a  worse 
penalty  than  the  old  Blue  Laws  imposed  on  the 
man  who  kissed  his  wife  on  Sunday.  It  is  a  pity 
that  this  crabbed  censor,  of  many  theoretical  virtues 
and  a  few  practical  ones  set  in  thorns,  failed  to 
appreciate  the  dignity  and  decorum  of  the  Roman 
matron.  It  was  this  same  rigid  Cato  who,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  he  "  preferred  a  good  husband  to  a 

117 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

great  senator,"  was  so  inconsistently  shocked  that  a 
Roman  lady  should  presume  to  be  a  companion  to 
her  noble  lord.  He  looked  upon  a  wife  as  a  neces- 
sary evil,  and  declared  that  "  the  lives  of  men  would 
be  less  godless  if  they  were  quit  of  women." 

There  was  no  question  of  love  or  inclination  in 
arranging  a  Roman  marriage.  It  was  simply  a 
contract  between  citizens,  a  State  affair  intended 
solely  to  perpetuate  the  race  in  its  purity,  and  to 
preserve  family  and  religious  traditions.  In  its  best 
form  it  was  for  centuries  restricted  to  patricians,  who 
alone  were  privileged  to  take  the  mystic  bread  to- 
gether. This  constituted  a  religious  marriage,  and 
only  this  could  give  their  children  pure  descent  or 
admission  to  the  highest  functions  of  the  State?) 
There  were  two  lower  grades  of  civil  marriage,  "Eiit 
each  gave  a  man  supreme  control  of  his  wife,  with- 
out the  dignity  of  consecration.  Whatever  cruelty 
and  suffering  might  result  from  this  one-sided  rela- 
tion,— and  the  possibilities  were  enormous, — a  wo- 
man was  expected  to  love  the  husband  chosen  by  her 
friends,  for  himself  alone,  and  a  bridegroom's  pres- 
ents were  limited  by  custom,  so  that  she  might  not 
be  tempted  to  love  him  for  what  he  could  give  her. 
She  must  go  out  to  meet  him,  submit  patiently  to 
any  indignities  he  might  offer,  and  mourn  him  in 
due  form  when  he  died.  Her  death  he  was  not  re- 
quired to  mourn  at  all.  His  infidelities  she  must 
never  see,  as  any  complaint  was  likely  to  meet  with 

118 


REVOLT    OF    THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

a  dismissal,  and  she  knew  that  even  her  father  would 
say  it  served  her  right  for  interfering  in  any  way 
with  a  man's  privilege  of  doing  as  he  liked. 

That  a  woman  ever  did  love  her  husband  under 
such  conditions  proves  that  her  heart  was  as  tender 
as  her  capacity  for  self-sacrifice  was  great;  also 
that  men  were  by  no  means  as  wicked  or  tyrannical 
as  they  had  the  power  to  be.  We  know  that  liberty 
is  not  always  insured  by  an  edict,  nor  does  cruelty 
or  injustice  invariably  follow  the  lack  of  a  decree 
against  it.  There  are  many  notable  instances  of  the 
devotion  of  Roman  women  and  the  affection  of 
Roman  men;  indeed,  it  is  quite  certain  that  there 
was  a  great  deal  of  happy  domestic  life.  Men 
naturally  accepted  the  traditions  of  a  society  into 
which  they  had  been  born,  and  women  did  not  ques- 
tion them  unless  their  burdens  became  intolerable, 
and  even  these  they  considered  a  part  of  their  des- 
tiny, as  good  women  had  done  before  them — and 
have  done  since.  But  power  is  a  dangerous  gift  for 
the  best  of  us,  and  without  some  strong  safeguard, 
moral  or  legal,  brute  force  inevitably  asserts  itself 
over  helplessness.  In  modern  times  a  sentiment 
grown  into  a  tradition  has  done  much  toward  tem- 
pering the  condition  of  women  even  under  arbitrary 
rule,  though/  their  own  increased  intelligence  has 
done  more.  ^  Sentiment,  however,  was  not  a  quality 
of  the  average  Roman  character.  Men  were  mas- 
terful and  passionate,  eager  of  power  and  impatient 

119 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

of  contradiction.  To  offset  this,  they  often  had  a 
strong  family  feeling  and  a  certain  sense  of  justice, 
besides  a  natural  love  of  peace  in  the  home ;  but 
this  did  not  suffice  to  curb  the  violence  and  cruelty 
of  the  wicked,  nor  to  render  the  position  of  the 
high-spirited  wife  a  possible  one.  The  stuff  out  of 
which  Lucretias  and  Cornelias  are  made  is  not  the 
stuff  to  bear  habitual  oppression  silently,  beyond 
a  certain  point. 

It  was  doubtless  this  oppression  that  was  respon- 
sible for  a  startling  epidemic  of  husband-poisoning 
in  the  fourth  century  before  Christ.  The  women 
who  prepared  the  drugs  were  betrayed  by  a  maid, 
and  one  hundred  and  seventy  matrons — some  of 
them  patricians — were  found  guilty.  The  leaders 
were  forced  to  take  their  own  poisons,  and  died 
with  the  calmness  of  Stoics.  Two  hundred  years 
afterward  there  was  another  epidemic  of  the  same 
sort,  and  many  eminent  men  paid  the  penalty  of 
their  cruelties  with  their  lives.  This  mode  of  re- 
dressing wrongs  became  too  common  to  be  passed 
to  the  account  of  individual  crime.  It  was  the  pro- 
test of  helpless  ignorance  that  had  found  no  other 
weapon. 

About  this  time,  however,  the  Roman  matrons 
took  a  more  civilized  and  rational  method  of  assert- 
ing their  rights.  It  was  an  innovation  to  claim  any, 
but  they  were  too  proud  to  accept  the  hopeless 
vassalage  of  the  Athenian  woman.  Indignant  at 

1 20 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

the  inferiority  of  their  condition,  without  recourse 
or  refuge  against  cruelty  and  injustice,  hampered  by 
needless  and  petty  restrictions,  they  rebelled  at  last.j 

ONE  sees  little  clearly  through  the  mists  of  two 
thousand  years,  and  we  know  few  details  of  what 
seems  to  have  been  the  first  concerted  revolt  on  the 
part  of  women.  The  visible  cause  was  a  trivial  one, 
but  it  was  the  proverbial  last  drop,  and  served  at 
least  to  bring  dismay  into  the  councils  of  men,  and 
afterward,  possibly,  reflection.  The  Roman  woman 
was  patriotic  and  quite  ready,  at  need,  to  give  all 
and  ask  nothing.  When  money  was  required  to 
carry  on  the  Punic  wars,  she  poured  out  her  jewels 
and  personal  treasures  with  lavish  generosity ;  nor 
did  she  murmur  when  the  Oppian  law  decreed  that 
she  must  no  longer  wear  purple  or  many-colored 
robes,  that  her  gold  ornaments  must  weigh  no  more 
than  half  an  ounce,  and  that  she  must  walk  if  she 
went  out,  as  the  use  of  a  carriage  in  the  city  was  a 
forbidden  luxury.  These  were  small  privileges,  but 
they  were  about  all  she  had,  and  when  the  crisis  was 
past,  she  asked  a  repeal  of  the  decree.  She  met  the 
usual  rebuff  of  those  who  seek  to  regain  a  lost  point. 
Men  saw  in  such  a  request  only  an  "  irruption  of 
female  emancipators,"  dangerous  alike  to  religion 
and  the  State.  Cato,  the  austere,  refused  a  petition 

121 


REVOLT    OF    THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

which  he  regarded  as  a  subversion  of  order  and  a 
rebellion  against  lawful  masters.  He  said  that  the 
claim  of  women  to  any  rights  or  any  voice  in  public 
affairs  was  a  proof  that  men  had  lost  their  majesty 
as  well  as  their  authority ;  such  a  thing  could  not 
have  happened  if  each  one  had  kept  his  own  wife  in 
proper  subjection.  "  Our  privileges,"  he  continues, 
"  overpowered  at  home  by  female  contumacy,  are, 
even  here  in  the  forum,  spurned  and  trodden 
under  foot  "  ;  indeed,  he  begins  to  fear  that  "  the 
whole  race  of  males  may  be  utterly  destroyed  by  a 
conspiracy  of  women."  He  rails  at  the  matrons, 
who  throng  the  forum,  for  "  running  into  public  and 
addressing  other  women's  husbands."  It  "  does  not 
concern  them  what  laws  are  passed  or  repealed." 
He  bewails  the  "  good  old  days  "  when  women  were 
forced  to  obey  their  fathers,  brothers,  or  husbands. 
"  Now  they  are  so  lost  to  a  sense  of  decency  as  to  ask 
favors  of  other  men."  "Women,"  he  says,  "bear 
law  with  impatience."  They  long  for  liberty,  which 
is  not  good  for  them.  With  all  the  old  restrictions, 
it  is  difficult  to  keep  them  within  bounds.  "  The 
moment  they  have  arrived  at  equality  they  will  be 
our  superiors  " — a  dangerous  admission  surely.  He 
calls  the  affair  a  sedition,  an  insurrection,  a  secession 
of  women. 

But  the  matrons  had  some  able  defenders.  Lu- 
cius Valerius,  who  had  asked  the  repeal  of  this 
obnoxious  law,  spoke  for  them.  He  objects  to  call- 

122 


REVOLT   OF   THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

ing  a  natural  request  by  such  hard  names,  and 
quotes  from  antiquity  to  prove  that  it  is  not  a  new 
thing  for  Roman  matrons  to  come  out  in  public,  as 
they  have  often  done  so  in  the  interest  of  the  State, 
and  "  always  to  its  advantage."  He  recalls  the 
various  times  when  they  saved  Rome,  and  refers  to 
the  generosity  with  which  they  invariably  responded 
to  a  call  for  help.  No  one  objected  when  they  ap- 
peared for  the  general  good ;  why  should  they  be 
censured  when  they  asked  a  favor  for  themselves? 
In  reply  to  the  accusation  of  extravagance,  he  says : 
"  When  you  wear  purple  on  your  own  robe,  why 
will  you  not  permit  your  wife  a  purple  mantle?" 
...  "  Will  you  spend  more  on  your  horse  than  on 
your  wife?"  Then  he  asks  why  women  who  have 
always  been  noted  for  modesty  should  lose  it  now 
through  the  repeal  of  a  law  that  has  not  been  in  exis- 
tence more  than  twenty  years.  One  is  tempted  to 
quote  at  length  from  these  speeches,  because  they 
show  us  how  the  Romans  discussed  certain  questions 
that  are  familiar  to-day.  To  be  sure,  it  was  only  a 
woman's  privilege  of  dressing  as  she  chose  that  they 
were  considering,  but  it  really  involved  her  right  to 
ask  anything  which  her  lord  and  master  did  not 
freely  accord.  We  hear  practically  the  same  argu- 
ments, the  same  fears,  the  same  special  pleadings 
on  both  sides,  at  each  new  step  in  the  social  ad- 
vancement of  women. 

The  Roman  matrons,  however,  were  not  discour- 
123 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

aged  by  criticism.  They  flocked  to  the  forum  in 
*  greater  numbers  than  ever.  Women  came  in  from 
the  towns  and  villages  to  aid  them.  The  senators 
were  so  astounded  at  their  audacity  that  they  sol- 
emnly implored  the  gods  to  reveal  the  nature  of  the 
omen.  They  stigmatized  the  leaders  as  "  andro- 
gynes "  or  "he-women,"  a  term  of  contempt  so 
freely  applied  in  this  country,  less  than  fifty  years 
ago,  to  those  who  bravely  presented  the  claims  of 
their  sex  to  larger  consideration,  and  who,  silver- 
haired  and  venerable,  are  so  widely  honored  to-day. 
We  do  not  hear  that  there  were  any  congresses  or 
conventions,  but  these  Roman  ladies  held  meetings, 
went  into  the  streets  for  votes,  and  appealed  to 
nobles,  officials,  and  strangers  alike.  They  sought 
the  tribunes  in  their  houses,  and  used  all  their  arts 
of  persuasion.  There  were  fair-minded  men  then 
as  now,  and  the  spirited  rebels  won  their  cause, 
though  Cato  revenged  himself  for  his  defeat  by  im- 
posing a  heavy  tax  on  the  dress,  ornaments,  and  car- 
riages of  women.  It  is  said  that  they  put  on  their 
gay  robes  and  jewels  at  once,  and  celebrated  their 
victory  by  dancing  in  the  legislative  halls. 

Not  far  from  this  time,  possibly  a  little  before,  a 
dowry  was  set  apart  for  women.  But  there  was  a 
growing  jealousy  of  their  increasing  independence, 
and,  a  few  years  later,  it  was  proposed  to  take  away 
from  them  the  right  of  inheritance.  It  was  feared 
that  too  much  property  might  fall  into  their  hands, 

124 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

as  had  been  the  case  in  Sparta ;  also,  that  their  taste 
for  elegant  living  might  lead  to  degeneracy  of  man- 
ners and  morals.  The  irrepressible  Cato  again  came 
to  the  front  and  declaimed  against  the  arrogance 
and  tyranny  of  rich  women.  After  bringing  their 
husbands  a  large  dowry,  he  said,  they  even  had  the 
presumption  to  retain  some  of  their  own  money  for 
themselves  and  ask  payment  if  they  lent  it  to  their 
masters!  Men  could  not  be  expected  to  tolerate 
such  insufferable  insolence  on  the  part  of  their  "  re- 
served slaves."  And  so  the  decree  was  passed. 
But  it  was  more  honored  in  the  breach  than  in  the 
observance,  and  became  a  dead  letter,  as  men  them- 
selves thought  it  unjust. 

How  far  the  gradual  change  in  the  laws  was  due 
to  the  efforts  of  women  and  how  far  to  the  justice 
of  men,  it  is  not  easy  to  determine;  but  the  as- 
tonished attitude  of  the  latter  when  they  felt  that 
their  time-honored  supremacy  was  in  peril  shows 
better  than  anything  else  the  real  significance  of  the 
movement  which  was  precipitated  by  so  slight  a 
cause.  It  is  quite  safe  to  say  that  without  an  em- 
phatic protest  there  would  have  been  no  thought  of 
justice.  Traditions  are  only  broken  from  the  inside 
where  they  press  heavily.  In  this  case  it  was  a 
daring  and  unheard-of  thing  to  run  against  the  cur- 
rent of  centuries  of  passive  submission ;  but  "  it  is 
the  first  step  that  costs."  When  the  right  of  being 
heard  had  been  once  asserted,  grave  statesmen  and 

125 


REVOLT    OF    THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

jurists  took  up  the  matter  and  solved  it  as  best  they 
could,  with  an  evident  desire  to  be  just  and  kind,  as 
they  understood  it.  It  could  hardly  be  expected 
that  half  of  the  human  family  would  voluntarily 
relinquish  the  absolute  ownership  of  the  other  half, 
or  even  believe  it  to  be  good  for  the  other  half 
that  they  should  do  so.  Men  are  not  so  con- 
stituted. The  institutions  and  customs  that  had 
come  to  them  from  their  fathers  they  felt  bound 
to  pass  on,  as  far  as  possible,  intact.  Besides,  all 
vital  changes  must  be  slow,  unless  they  are  to  be 
chaotic.  But  the  leaven  of  a  new  intelligence 
worked  surely,  if  not  swiftly. 

The  masses  of  the  Roman  women  never  passed 
out  of  a  condition  which  we  should  call  subjection, 
though  they  did  secure  at  last  the  use  of  their  own 
fortunes,  relative  freedom  in  the  marriage  contract, 
and  a  certain  protection  against  money-hunting  and 
spendthrift  husbands.  In  the  reign  of  Augustus 
the  wife  was  given  a  guaranty  for  her  own  prop- 
erty, and  the  husband  was  forbidden  to  alienate  the 
dowry.  The  mother  was  in  a  measure  freed  from 
oppressive  guardianship,  which  later  ceased  alto- 
gether. Under  Hadrian  she  was  permitted  to  make 
a  will  without  consulting  any  one,  also  to  inherit 
from  her  sons.  In  many  regards  the  Romans  after 
the  Antonines  were  more  just  to  women  than  are 
most  of  the  civilized  nations  of  to-day.  But  these 
changes  were  the  work  of  centuries,  and  it  is  pos- 

126 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

sible  here  to  touch  only  upon  a  few  essential 
points. 

There  was  a  second  revolt  more  than  a  hundred 
years  after  the  first,  when  the  triumvirs  levied  on  the 
rich  women  of  Rome  a  tax  which  compelled  many 
of  them  to  sacrifice  their  jewels.^  They  appealed  to 
Octavia  to  use  her  influence,  also  to  the  able  mother 
of  Antony,  both  of  whom  favored  them ;  but  his 
wife,  the  Fulvia  of  unpleasant  fame,  treated  them 
with  intolerable  rudeness.  Again  they  thronged  the 
forum ;  but  they  had  made  vast  strides  in  intelligence, 
and  this  time  the  eloquent  daughter  of  a  famous  ora- 
tor was  chosen  to  plead  for  them.  It  was  no  longer 
a  simple  matter  of  personal  injustice,  but  also  a 
moral  question  upon  which  thoughtful  women  had 
distinct  opinions  and  the  ability  to  express  them. 
Hortensia  spoke  for  peace.  "  Do  not  ask  us,"  she 
says,  "  to  contribute  to  the  fratricidal  war  that  is 
rending  the  Republic."  Her  appeal  for  justice  re- 
calls a  plea  so  often  heard  to-day,  in  a  form  that  is 
but  slightly  altered.  "  Why  should  we  pay  taxes," 
she  says,  "  when  we  have  no  part  in  the  honors,  the 
commands,  the  statecraft,  for  which  you  contend 
against  each  other  with  such  harmful  results?  .  .  . 
When  have  taxes  ever  been  imposed  on  women?" 
Quintilian  refers  to  this  address  of  a  brilliant  matron 
as  worthy  to  be  read  for  its  excellence,  and  "  not 
merely  as  an  honor  to  her  sex." 

These  spirited  and  high-born  women  were  sent 
127 


REVOLT   OF   THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

home,  as  the  others  had  been,  but  the  people  again 
came  to  their  aid,  and  it  was  found  best  to  limit  the 
tax  to  a  few  who  could  bear  the  burden  easily. 

IV 

\  BUT  the  most  serious  conflict  was  on  the  marriage 
question.  The  attitude  of  the  Roman  man  has  been 
already  touched  upon — an  attitude  as  old  as  the 
world.  In  theory,  a  woman  might  be  as  chaste  as 
Lucretia,  as  wise  as  Minerva,  as  near  to  divinity  as 
the  Vestals;  in  fact,  she  was  only  the  servant  of 
men's  interests  or  passions,  and  when  she  ceased  to 
be  a  willing  or  at  least  a  passive  one,  the  trouble 
began.'.  So  long  as  marriage  gave  a  man  added 
dignity  and  somebody  to  rule  over,  with  no  special 
obligations  that  were  likely  to  be  inconvenient,  or 
that  could  not  be  shaken  off  at  will,  things  went 
smoothly  enough  on  his  side.  But  when  he  had  to 
deal  with  a  being  who  demanded  some  consideration, 
perhaps  some  sacrifice,  it  was  another  affair.  His 
privileges  were  seriously  curtailed.  If  he  married 
wealth,  it  was  quite  possible  for  the  owner  to  be- 
come imperious  and  exacting,  as  it  was  not  so  easy 
to  put  away  a  wife  when  one  must  return  her  for- 
tune. "  I  have  sold  my  authority  for  the  dowry  I 
have  accepted,"  says  Plautus.  As  to  marrying  from 
inclination,  a  man  had  little  more  freedom  of  action 
than  a  maiden,  while  his  father  lived.  If  he  was 

128 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

a  patrician  he  must  marry  within  a  limited  class, 
much  as  he  might  like  to  go  outside  of  it;  and 
so  long  as  this  law  continued  to  exist,  the  penalty 
for  violating  it  was  too  severe  to  be  braved.  Be- 
sides, there  were  cares  and  restrictions  in  the  mar- 
riage relation  for  pleasure-loving  men.  Wives  with- 
out fortunes  might  be  less  exacting,  but  they  were 
more  expensive,  which  was  worse,  since  men  pre- 
ferred to  spend  their  money  on  themselves — a  state 
of  affairs  toward  which  a  certain  class  is  rapidly 
drifting  to-day,  if  it  is  not  there  already. A  States- 
men began  to  be  alarmed.  "  If  it  were  possible  to 
do  without  wives,  great  cares  would  be  spared  us," 
said  Metellus  in  an  address  to  the  Senate ;  "  but 
since  nature  has  decreed  that  we  cannot  live  with- 
out a  wife,  nor  comfortably  with  one,  let  us  bear  the 
burden  manfully,  and  look  to  the  perpetuity  of  the 
State  rather  than  to  our  own  satisfaction."  It  never 
seems  to  have  occurred  to  these  consistent  descen- 
dants of  Adam  to  consider  the  burdens  of  the 
woman  at  all.  On  her  side,  a  rich  woman  hesitated 
to  take  a  master,  if  she  was  independent  enough 
to  have  any  choice,  which  was  rare,  and  without  a 
dowry  she  was  quite  sure  of  rinding  a  capricious 
one,  who  would  not  scruple  to  neglect  her.  Some 
guaranties  she  must  have,  and  these  men  did  not 
like  to  give.  So  men  and  women  alike  combined 
against  the  existing  order  of  things,  men  for  the 
right  to  do  precisely  as  they  pleased,  women  for  the 
9  129 


REVOLT    OF    THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

right  of  choice  in  husbands  and  of  breaking  chains 
when  they  became  intolerable. 

It  has  often  been  stated,  by  moralists  over-anxious 
to  make  out  a  case,  that  this  aversion  to  marriage, 
on  the  part  of  men,  was  due  to  the  laxity  of  women. 
Of  this  I  do  not  find  any  evidence.  It  was  due  in 
part  to  the  restrictions  already  mentioned,  and  in 
part  to  the  increasing  luxury  which,  added  to  the 
long  habit  of  absolute  power,  led  to  impatience  of 
any  domestic  obligations,  and  a  riot  of  the  senses,  as 
it  has  always  done,  before  and  since.  Besides,  there 
were  the  brilliant  Oriental  women  who  began  to  flock 
to  Rome,  bringing  with  them  Hellenic  tastes,  with 
subtle  fascinations  that  stole  away  the  hearts  of  men 
and  threatened  a  state  of  affairs  similar  to  that  which 
existed  in  Athens.  This  the  spirited  Roman  women 
could  not  tolerate.  To  be  thrust  by  strangers  into 
a  secondary  place  was  not  to  be  thought  of  by  these 
proud  patricians,  who  refused  to  put  themselves  in 
a  position  where  such  neglect  was  possible.  They 
began  to  realize  that  the  old  virtues  did  not  suffice 
to  hold  men's  wandering  fancies.  It  was  very  well 
to  carve  on  a  woman's  tombstone,  as  a  last  word  of 
praise,  an  epitaph  like  this :  "  Gentle  in  words,  grace- 
ful in  manner;  she  loved  her  husband  devotedly; 
she  kept  her  house,  she  spun  wool."  But  what 
availed  it  when  this  husband  left  her  to  the  compan- 
ionship of  her  duties  and  her  virtues,  while  he  gave 
what  he  called  his  affections  to  those  who  had  fewer 

130 


REVOLT    OF  THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

virtues  and  more  accomplishments?  It  was  not 
laxity  of  morals,  but  lack  of  intelligence  and  culture, 
that  stood  in  the  way  of  the  Roman  woman  in  the 
days  when  Greek  literature,  Greek  art,  and  Greek 
refinement  first  came  into  fashion^  That  she  pro- 
tested against  traditions  which  made  it  superfluous, 
if  not  dangerous,  to  cultivate  her  intellect,  may  fairly 
be  assumed.  But  she  had  a  powerful  ally.  On  this 
point  the  Romans  showed  far  more  wisdom  than  the 
Greeks.  When  they  saw  their  own  daughters  set 
aside  for  these  fascinating  rivals,  they  began  to  edu- 
cate them. 

\  Just  when  the  movement  toward  things  of  the 
intellect  began  among  Roman  women,  it  is  difficult 
to  determine  with  any  exactness.  It  was  after  the 
Eastern  wars  and  probably  about  the  time  of  the 
first  revolt.  It  had  not  been  long  since  men  began 
to  catch  the  spirit  of  Greek  culture.  For  five  hun- 
dred years  after  the  foundation  of  Rome  there  was 
not  a  book  written,  nor  even  a  poem  or  a  song.  As 
soon  as  men  began  to  study  and  think,  women  were 
disposed  to  do  the  same  thing:.  If  they  could  not 
well  fight,  they  had  the  ability  to  learn.  The  pre- 
tensions of  sex  were  not  emphasized,  but  indi- 
vidual attainment  was  not  without  recognition.  We 
begin  to  find  women  who  were  noted  not  only  for 
strength,  wisdom,  and  administrative  ability,  but  for 
literary  taste  and  culture.  '\  The  austere  virtues  of 
Cornelia,  who  lived  in  the  second  century  before  our 


REVOLT    OF    THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

era,  are  among  the  familiar  facts  of  history.  She 
has  been  often  quoted  as  the  supreme  exemplar  of 
the  crowning  grace  of  womanhood,  and  we  know 
that  she  was  honored  at  her  death  with  a  statue  ded- 
icated to  the  "  Mother  of  the  Gracchi."  Of  her 
refinement,  knowledge,  and  love  of  letters,  less  has 
been  said,  but  it  was  largely  because  of  these  that 
she  was  able  to  train  great  sons.  Cicero,  who  pro- 
nounced her  letters  among  the  purest  specimens  of 
style  extant  in  his  time,  dwells  upon  the  fact  that 
these  sons  were  educated  in  the  purity  and  elegance 
of  their  mother's  language.  Quintilian  says  that  the 
"  mother,  whose  learned  letters  have  come  down  to 
posterity,  contributed  greatly  to  their  eloquence." 
Her  passion  for  Hellenic  poetry  and  philosophy  was 
well  known.  It  was  a  part  of  her  heritage  from  her 
father,  the  illustrious  Scipio,  a  great  general  with 
the  tastes  and  abilities  of  a  great  scholar.  Cato 
found  fault  with  him  and  said  he  must  be  brought 
down  to  republican  equality.  This  fiery  radical  and 
economist,  who  hated  luxury,  reviled  women  who 
had  opinions,  preached  morals  which  he  did  not 
possess,  whipped  his  slaves  if  anything  was  lost  or 
spoiled,  sold  them  at  auction  when  they  were  sick 
or  old,  and  put  them  to  death  if  they  did  not  please 
him, — this  censor  who  was  so  generally  disagreeable 
that  when  he  died  a  wit  said,  "  Pluto  dreaded  to  re- 
ceive him  because  he  was  always  ready  to  bite,"- 
could  not  tolerate  a  man  of  refinement  who  shaved 

132 


REVOLT   OF   THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

every  day  and  patronized  Greek  learning,  whatever 
glory  he  might  reflect  on  his  country.  We  do  not 
know  what  he  said  about  Cornelia,  but  it  may  be 
imagined,  as  he  was  the  determined  adversary  of 
feminine  culture. 

The  woman  who  brought  up  the  Gracchi,  and  was 
so  proud  to  show  these  "  jewels  "  to  her  finery-lov- 
ing friends,  was  no  pedant,  but  in  her  last  desolate 
years,  when  she  was  left  alone  with  all  her  tragical 
memories,  her  hospitable  home  at  Misenum  was  a 
center  for  learned  Greeks  and  men  of  intellectual 
distinction.  She  was  a  woman  of  great  force  of 
character,  and  the  composure  with  which  she  bore 
her  misfortune,  and  talked  of  the  deeds  and  suffer- 
ings of  her  sons,  was  sometimes  thought  to  show  a 
lack  of  sensibility.  Plutarch,  with  his  usual  insight 
and  cordial  appreciation  of  women,  said  it  indicated 
rather  a  lack  of  understanding  on  the  part  of  the 
critics  that  they  did  not  know  the  value  of  "  a  noble 
mind  and  liberal  education "  in  supporting  their 
possessor  under  sorrow  and  calamity.1^  This  heroic 
mother  of  heroic  sons,  who  "  refused  Ptolemy  and 
a  crown,"  was  the  first  Roman  matron  of  distin- 
guished intellectual  attainments  of  whom  we  have 
any  definite  knowledge,  and  the  finest  feminine 
representative  of  her  age.  Within  the  next  cen- 
tury there  were  many  others  more  or  less  prom- 
inent in  social  life.' , 

With  the  adv*ance  in  education  many  of  the  ob- 

133 


REVOLT    OF    THE    ROMAN    WOMEN 

stacles  to  marriage  were  removed,  and  the  dangers 
that  had  lurked  in  the  ignorance  of  Athenian  women 
were  averted.  But  the  problem  never  ceased  to 
be  a  troublesome  one.  With  the  increase  of 
wealth  men  grew  more  self-indulgent,  and  less 
inclined  to  incur  obligations  of  any  sort.  The 
despair  of  Augustus  had  its  humorous  side.  He 
exhausted  his  wit  in  devising  means  to  induce  men 
to  marry.  In  vain  he  gave  honor  and  freedom 
to  the  married,  exacted  fresh  penalties  from  bache- 
lors, who  were  forbidden  to  receive  bequests,  and 
made  laws  against  immorality.  Fathers  had  pre- 
cedence everywhere — in  affairs,  at  the  theater,  in 
public  offices.  "  For  less  rewards  than  these  thou- 
sands would  lose  their  lives,"  he  said.  "Can  they 
not  tempt  a  Roman  citizen  to  marry  a  wife  ?  "  Some 
who  wished  the  privileges  without  the  troubles 
compromised  the  matter  by  entering  into  formal 
contracts  with  children  four  or  five  years  of  age. 
Others  took  a  wife  for  a  year  to  comply  with  the 
law,  and  then  dismissed  her. 

It  is  not  the  purpose  here  to  pursue  in  detail  this 
phase  of  Roman  life,  nor  to  trace  the  slow  and  ob- 
scure changes  in  the  laws  that  followed  the  revolt 
of  women  from  ages  of  oppression.  This  brief  out- 
line suffices  to  show  that  the  women  of  two  thousand 
years  ago  were  far  from  accepting  abject  subservi- 
ence without  a  protest;  that  they  had  the  spirit  and 
intelligence  to  combine  in  their  own  defense ;  that 

134 


REVOLT    OF   THE    ROMAN   WOMEN 

they  won  the  privilege  of  virtually  the  same  edu- 
cation which  was  given  to  men,  and  so  much  con- 
sideration that  the  Romans  of  the  third  and  fourth 
centuries  were  more  just  to  a  woman's  rights  of 
property  than  were  the  Americans  in  the  first  half 
of  the  nineteenth.  Happily  better  counsels  pre- 
vail here  to-day ;  but  it  is  a  commentary  on  the 
instability  of  human  affairs  that,  even  on  the 
higher  plane  of  morals  and  intelligence  from  which 
we  started,  the  battle  had  to  be  fought  over  again. 


135 


THE    "NEW    WOMAN'     OF 
OLD    ROME 


THE    "NEW    WOMAN"    OF 
OLD    ROME 

00 

0 

•  Wickedness  of  Imperial  Days    • 
•    The  Reverse  of  the  Picture    • 

•    Parallel  between  the  Romans  and  Ourselves    • 

•  Their  "  New  Woman"    • 

Her  Political  Wisdom    •    Her  Relative  Independence 

•  Literature  in  the  Golden  Age    • 

•    Horace    •    Ovid    • 
Tributes  to  Cultivated  Women  in  Letters  of  Cicero 

•  Literary  Circles    •    Opinions  of  Satirists    • 

•    Reaction  on  Manners    • 

•  Tributes  in  Letters  of  Pliny  and  Seneca    • 

•    Glimpses  of  Family  Life  in  Correspondence  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  and  Fronto    • 

•  Public  Honors  to  Women    • 


THE    "NEW    WOMAN"     OF    OLD    ROME 

I 

GREAT  deal  has  been  said  of  the 
Roman  women  of  imperial  days. 
Much  of  it  is  not  to  their  credit,  but 
the  bad  are  apt  to  be  more  striking 
figures  than  the  good,  and  to  over- 
shadow them  in  a  long  perspective.  The  world  likes 
to  put  its  saints  in  a  special  category,  and  worship 
them  from  afar.  It  seems  fitting  that  they  should 
sing  hymns  and  pray  for  suffering  humanity  in  a 
cloistral  seclusion,  but  they  are  rarely  quoted  as  rep- 
resentative of  their  age.  On  the  other  hand,  it  holds 
up  its  brilliant  or  high-placed  sinners  as  examples 
to  be  shunned  ;  but  it  talks  about  them  and  lifts  them 
on  a  pedestal  to  show  us  how  wicked  they  are,  until  in 
the  course  of  centuries  they  come  to  be  looked  upon 
as  representing  the  women  of  their  time,  when  in 
fact  they  represent  only  its  worst  type.  Two  thou- 

139 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

sand  years  hence,  no  doubt  a  few  conspicuous 
women  noted  to-day  for  brilliancy,  beauty,  or  spe- 
cial gifts,  rather  than  for  flawless  character,  will  stand 
out  in  more  luminous  colors  than  the  great  mass  of 
refined  and  cultivated  ones  who  have  dazzled  their 
generation  less  and  graced  it  more.  Possibly  they 
may  even  furnish  a  text  on  which  some  strenuous 
moralist  of  the  fortieth  century  will  expatiate,  with 
illustrations  from  our  big-lettered  journals,  to  show 
the  corruption  of  our  manners  and  the  dangers  that 
lie  in  the  cultivation  of  feminine  intellect !  And  yet 
we  know  that  the  moral  standards  of  the  world 
were  never  so  high  as  in  these  days  when  the  influ- 
ence of  women  in  the  mass  is  greater  than  ever 
before. 

Of  the  colossal  wickedness  of  imperial  Rome 
there  is  no  question,  and  sinners  were  not  rare 
among  women.  But  the  Julias  and  Messalinas  did 
not  represent  the  average  tone  of  Roman  society, 
any  more  than  the  too  numerous  examples  of  vice 
in  high  places  reflect  the  average  morality  of  the 
great  cities  of  to-day.  A  careful  study  of  those 
times  reveals,  beneath  the  surface  of  the  life  most 
conspicuous  for  its  brilliancy  and  its  vices,  a  type  of 
womanhood  as  strong  and  heroic  as  we  find  in  primi- 
tive days,  with  the  added  wisdom,  culture,  and  help- 
fulness which  had  grown  out  of  the  freer  develop- 
ment of  the  intellect 

The  Romans  of  the  last  century  of  the  Republic 
140 


THE   "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

had,  like  ourselves,  their  corrupt  politicians,  their 
struggles  for  office,  their  demagogues,  and  their 
wars  for  liberty — meaning  their  own.  They  had 
also  their  plutocrats,  their  parvenus,  their  love  of 
glittering  splendor,  their  rage  for  culture,  their 
patrons  of  art,  who  brought  the  masterpieces  over 
the  seas,  and,  not  least,  their  "  new  woman."  I  use 
the  phrase  in  its  best,  not  in  its  extreme,  sense ;  the 
exaggeration  of  a  good  type  is  always  a  bad  one. 
This  last  product  of  a  growing  civilization  did  not 
claim  political  rights  or  industrial  privileges,  as  we 
understand  them ;  she  did  not  write  books  of  any 
note,  or  seek  university  honors  in  cap  and  gown; 
nor  did  she  combine  in  world-wide  organizations  to 
better  herself  and  other  people :  but  she  did  a  great 
many  things  in  similar  directions,  that  were  quite  as 
new  and  vital  to  the  world  in  which  she  lived.  If  she 
did  not  say  much  about  the  higher  education,  she 
was  beginning  to  have  a  good  deal  of  the  best  that 
was  known.  The  example  of  the  learned  as  well 
as  virtuous  and  womanly  Cornelia  had  not  been  lost. 
It  was  no  longer  sufficient  to  say,  in  the  language  of 
an  old  epitaph,  that  a  woman  was  "  good  and  beau- 
tiful, an  indefatigable  spinner,  pious,  reserved, 
chaste,  and  a  good  housekeeper."  The  conservative 
matron  still  prided  herself  on  these  qualities  which 
had  so  long  constituted  the  glory  of  her  sex,  but  it 
was  decreed  that  she  must  have  something  more. 
In  the  new  order  of  things,  she^  shared  in  the  culti- 


\ 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

vation  of  the  intellect,  and  ignorance  had  lost  its 
place  among  the  virtues.  Girls  were  educated  with 
boys,  read  the  same  books,  and  studied  the  same 
subjects.  To  keep  pace  with  the  age,  a  woman 
must  be  familiar  with  Greek  as  well  as  Roman  let- 
ters. She  must  also  know  how  to  sing  and  dance. 
"  This  helps  them  to  find  husbands,"  says  Statius, 
who  had  little  money  to  give  his  daughter,  but  felt 
sure  she  could  marry  well  because  she  was  a  "  cul- 
tivated woman.",'  The  line  of  co-education,  however, 
was  drawn  at  singing  and  dancing,  where  it  began 
with  us.  In  earlier  times  these  accomplishments 
and  the  knowledge  of  various  languages  were  among 
the  attractions  of  the  courtezan. 

The  new  Roman  woman  did  not  live  her  life 
apart  from  men,  any  more  than  did  the  women  of 
the  old  regime.  Probably  it  never  occurred  to  her 
that  it  would  be  either  pleasant  or  desirable  to  do 
so.  She  simply  wished  to  be  considered  as  a  peer 
and  companion.  Nor  does  she  seem  to  have  been 
aggressive  in  public  affairs.  If  she  busied  herself 
with  them,  it  was  in  counsels  with  men,  and  her  in- 
fluence was  mainly  an  indirect  one.  She  had  freed 
herself  from  some  of  the  worst  features  of  an  irre- 
sponsible masculine  rule,  but  she  was  still  in  lead- 
ing-strings, though  the  strings  were  longer  and  gave 
her  a  little  more  freedom  of  movement.  There 
were  many  women  of  the  newer  generation  who 
added  to  the  simple  virtues  of  the  home  the  larger 

142 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

interests  of  the  citizen,  and  conspicuous  political 
wisdom  as  well  as  great  intelligence.  We  first  hear 
of  them  in  councils  of  State  through  the  letters  of 
Cicero,  who  gossiped  so  agreeably,  and  at  times  so 
critically,  of  passing  events.  He  speaks  of  the  com- 
panions and  advisers  he  found  with  Brutus  at  An- 
tium,  among  whom  were  the  heroic  Portia,  wife  of 
the  misguided  leader,  his  sister  Tertulla,  and  his 
mother  Servilia,  a  woman  of  high  attainments  and 
masterful  character,  who  had  been  the  lifelong  friend 
of  Caesar.  The  influence  of  this  able  and  accom- 
plished matron  over  the  great  statesman  did  not 
wane  with  her  beauty,  as  it  lasted  to  the  end,  though 
she  could  not  save  him  from  the  fatal  blow  dealt  by 
her  soiy  The  tongue  of  scandal  did  not  spare  her, 
but  at  this  time  she  was  old  and  past  the  suspicion 
of  seeking  to  gain  her  purposes  by  the  arts  of  co- 
quetry. Cicero  feared  her  power,  as  her  force  of 
intellect  and  masculine  judgment  had  great  weight 
in  the  discussions  of  these  self-styled  patriots.  She 
even  went  so  far  as  to  engage  to  have  certain  impor- 
tant changes  made  in  a  decree  of  the  Senate,  which, 
for  a  woman,  was  going  very  far  indeed.  One  is 
often  struck  with  the  fact  that  so  many  great 
Romans  chose  their  women  friends  for  qualities  of 
intellect  and  character  rather  than  for  youth  or 
beauty.  When  ambition  is  uppermost  it  has  a  keen 
eye  for  those  who  can  minister  to  it,  and  a  woman's 
talents,  so  lightly  considered  before,  begin  to  have 

143 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

their  due  appreciation.  To  a  friend  who  said  to 
Caesar  that  certain  things  were  not  very  easy  for  a 
woman  to  do,  he  simply  replied :  "  Semiramis  ruled 
Assyria,  and  the  Amazons  conquered  Asia."  It  is 
known  that  he  paid  great  deference  to  his  mother, 
the  wise  and  stately  Aurelia,  to  whose  careful  train- 
ing he  owed  so  much.  Later,  women  publicly 
recommended  candidates  for  important  offices. 
Seneca  acknowledged  that  he  owed  the  questorship 
to  his  aunt,  who  was  one  of  the  most  modest  and 
reserved  as  well  as  intelligent  of  matrons.  "  They 
govern  our  houses,  the  tribunals,  the  armies,"  said 
a  censor  to  the  Senate.  If  their  counsels  were  not 
always  for  the  best, — and  even  men  are  not  infallible, 
— they  were  usually  in  the  interest  of  good  morals 
and  good  government. 

Nor  was  it  uncommon  for  the  Roman  woman  to 
plead  her  own  cause  in  the  forum.  There  was  a 
senator's  wife  who  appeared  oftefTm  the  courts,  and 
her  name,  Afrania,  was  applied  to  those  who  fol- 
lowed her  example.  The  only  speech  that  has  come 
down  to  us  was  the  celebrated  plea  of  Hortensia  for 
her  own  sex.  This  was  much  praised,  not  only  by 
great  men  of  that  day  but  in  after  times.  It  showed 
breadth  of  intellect  and  a  firm  grasp  of  affairs.  The 
privilege  of  speaking  in  the  forum  was  withdrawn  on 
account  of  the  violence  of  a  certain  Calphurnia — an 
incident  that  might  suggest  a  little  wholesome  mod- 
eration to  some  of  our  own  councils  and  too  zealous 

144 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF   OLD    ROME 

reformers.  *  There  were  also  sacerdotal  honors  open 
to  aspiring  women^  The  Flaminica  Augustalis 
offered  sacrifices  for  the  people  on  city  altars,  and 
the  services  of  various  divinities  were  always  in  the 
charge  of  women.  There  was  no  systematized  phi- 
lanthropy such  as  we  have  to-day,  but  we  hear  of 
much  private  beneficence.\\  Women  founded  schools 
for  girls  and  institutions  for  orphans.  They  built 
porticos  and  temples,  erected  monuments  and  es- 
tablished libraries;  indeed,  their  gifts  were  often 
recognized  by  statues  in  their  honor.  We  hear  of 
societies  of  women  who  discuss  city  affairs  and  con- 
sider rewards  to  be  conferred  on  magistrates  of  con- 
spicuous merit.  The  names  of  others  appear  in  in- 
scriptions on  tombs ;  but  their  mission  is  not  clear. 
There  were  also  women  who  practised  medicine ; 
this,  however,  may  not  have  implied  great  knowledge 
in  an  age  when  science,  as  we  understand  it,  was 
unknown. 


II 

BUT  a  clearer  idea  of  the  representative  Roman 
woman  on  her  intellectual  side,  and  of  the  estimation 
in  which  she  was  held,  is  gathered  through  her  rela- 
tion to  the  world  of  letters,  and  in  the  glimpses  of  a 
sympathetic  family  life  which  we  find  in  the  private 
correspondence  of  some  great  men. 

In  the  golden  age  of  Augustus  politics  had  ceased 

H5 


THE   "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

to  be  profitable  or  even  safe,  and  the  educated 
classes  turned  to  literature  for  occupation  and 
amusement,  when  they  did  not  turn  to  something 
worse.  It  was  the  fashion  to  patronize  letters,  and 
every  idler  prided  himself  on  writing  elegant  verses^ 
In  the  words  of  Horace : 

Now  the  light  people  bend  to  other  aims ; 
A  lust  of  scribbling  every  breast  inflames ; 
Our  youth,  our  senators,  with  bays  are  crowned, 
And  rhymes  eternal  as  our  feasts  go  round. 

Even  Augustus  wrote  bad  epigrams  and  a  worse 
tragedy.  Public  libraries  were  numerous, — there 
were  twenty-nine, — and  busts  of  great  masters  were 
placed  beside  their  works.  Authors  were  petted 
and  flattered,  and  they  flattered  their  patrons  in  turn. 
These  were  the  days  when  Horace  lived  at  his  ease 
on  his  Sabine  farm,  gently  satirizing  the  follies  and 
vices  that  were  preparing  the  decay  of  this  pleasure- 
loving  worlofN  posing  a  little  perhaps,  and  taking  a 
lofty  tofleT'toward  the  courtly  Maecenas  and  his 
powerful  master,  who  honored  the  brilliant  poet  and 
were  glad  to  let  him  do  as  he  liked.  "  Do  you  know 
that  I  am  angry  with  you  for  not  addressing  to  me 
one  of  your  epistles  ?  "  wrote  Augustus.  "  Are  you 
afraid  that  posterity  will  reproach  you  for  being  my 
friend  ?  If  you  are  so  proud  as  to  scorn  my  friend- 
ship, that  is  no  reason  why  I  should  lightly  esteem 
yours  in  return."  The  epistle  came,  but  the  little 

146 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

gray-haired  man,  who  saw  so  clearly  and  wrote  so 
wisely,  went  on  his  way  serenely  among  his  own 
hills,  stretching  himself  lazily  on  the  grass  by  some 
ruined  temple  or  running  stream,  and  sending  pleas- 
ant though  sometimes  caustic  words  to  the  friends 
he  would  not  take  the  trouble  to  go  and  see  unless 
peremptorily  summoned.  Such  was  the  relation 
between  the  ruler  of  the  world  and  those  who  con- 
ferred distinction  on  his  reign.  Ovid  discoursed 
upon  love,  and  became  a  lion,  until  he  forgot  to 
confine  himself  to  theory,  and  went  a  step  too  far  in 
practice.  Then  he  was  sent  away  from  his  honored 
place  among  the  gilded  youth  who  basked  in  the 
smiles  of  an  emperor's  granddaughter,  to  meditate 
on  the  vanity  of  life  and  the  uncertainty  of  fame, 

by  the  desolate  shores  of  the  Euxine. 

J 

I  In  this  blending  of  literature  and  fashion  women 
had  a  prominent  place,  though  not  as  writers.  No 
woman  of  the  educated  class  could  write  for  money, 
and  talent  of  that  sort,  even  if  she  had  it,  would 
have  brought  her  little  consideration.)  Whatever 
she  may  have  done  in  that  direction  was  like  foam 
on  the  crest  of  a  wave.  It  vanished  with  the  mo- 
ment. At  a  later  period  there  were  a  few  who 
wrote  poetry  of  which  a  trace  is  left.  Balbilla, 
who  was  taken  to  Egypt  in  the  train  of  Hadrian  and 
the  good  Empress  Sabina,  went  out  to  hear  the  song 
with  which  Memnon  greeted  his  mother  Aurora  at 
dawn,  and  scratched  some  verses  on  the  statue  in 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

honor  of  her  visit.  Possibly  they  were  only  the 
flattering  trifles  of  a  clever  courtier,  but  they  were 
graven  on  stone  and  outlasted  many  better  things. 
Of  wider  fame  was  Sulpicia,  the  wife  of  a  noted  man 
in  the  reign  of  Domitian,  who  wrote  a  poem  on 
"  Conjugal  Love,"  also  a  satire  on  an  edict  banish- 
ing the  philosophers,  fragments  of  which  still  exist. 
She  had  the  old  Roman  spirit,  but  was  less  concilia- 
tory than  the  eloquent  Hortensia  of  an  earlier  day, 
who  was  tired  of  the  brutalities  of  war.  She 
mourned  the  degeneracy  of  the  age,  calling  for 
"  reverses  that  will  awaken  patriotism,  yes,  reverses 
to  make  Rome  strong  again,  to  rouse  her  from  the 
soft  and  enervating  languor  of  a  fatal  peace."  The 
able  but  wicked  Agrippina,  of  tragical  memory, 
wrote  the  story  of  her  life  which  gave  to  Tacitus 
many  facts  and  points  for  his  "Annals."  Doubt- 
less there  were  other  things  that  went  the  way  of 
the  passing  epigrams  and  verses  of  Augustus  and 
his  elegant  courtiers.  Twenty  centuries  hence  who 
will  ever  hear  of  the  thousands,  yes,  millions  of 
more  or  less  clever  essays  and  poems  written  by 
men  and  women  to-day  and  multiplied  indefinitely 
by  a  facile  press?  What  will  the  future  antiquarian 
who  searches  the  pages  of  a  nineteenth-century 
anthology  know  of  us,  save  that  every  man  and 
woman  wrote,  but  nothing  lived,  except  perhaps  a 
volume  or  two  from  the  work  of  a  few  poets,  essay- 
ists, and  historians,  who  can  be  counted  on  one's 

148 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

fingers?  Oh,  yes;  there  are  the  novelists  whose 
value  is  measured  by  figures  and  dollars,  who  mul- 
tiply as  the  locusts  do.  Fine  as  we  may  think  them 
to-day,  how  many  of  their  books  will  survive 
the  sifting  of  time?  They  may  be  piled  in  old 
libraries,  but  who  will  take  the  trouble  to  dive  into 
a  mass  that  literally  has  no  bottom  ?  Will  the  world 
forget  that  women  did  anything  worth  preserving? 
Yet  our  women  are  educated ;  some  of  them  are 
scholars,  most  of  them  are  intelligent;  many  write 
well,  and  a  few  surpassingly  well. 
\  But  if  women  did  not  write,  they  used  their  influ- 
ence to  find  a  hearing  for  those  who  did.  Of  the 
learning  of  the  time  they  had  their  share,  though  it 
may  not  have  been  very  profound.  Ovid  tells  us 
that  "  there  are  learned  fair,  a  very  limited  number; 
another  set  are  not  learned,  but  they  wish  to  be  so." 
He  writes  of  a  gay  world  which  is  not  too  decorous 
or  too  serious,  but  in  the  category  of  a  woman's 
attractions  he  mentions  as  necessary  a  knowledge 
of  the  great  poets,  both  Greek  and  Latin,  among 
whom  he  modestly  counts  himself.  Women  of 
fashion  had  poets  or  philosophers  to  read  or  talk  to 
them,  even  at  their  toilets,  while  the  maids  brushed 
their  hair.  They  discussed  Plato  and  Aristotle  as 
we  do  Browning  and  economics.  They  dabbled  in 
the  mysteries  of  Isis  and  Osiris  as  we  do  in  theoso- 
phy  and  Buddhism ;  speculated  on  Christianity  as 
we  do  on  lesser  faiths,  and  began  to  doubt  their  fall- 

149 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

ing  gods.  Philosophy  was  "  the  religion  of  polite 
society,"  but  women  have  always  been  drawn  toward 
a  faith  that  appeals  to  the  emotions.  Then  there 
were  the  recitations  and  public  readings,  in  which 
they  were  actors  as  well  as  listeners. 

We  have  glimpses  of  the  more  seriously  intellec- 
tual side  of  the  Roman  woman  in  the  private  let- 
ters of  Cicero,  which  show  us  also  the  pleasant 
family  life  that  gives  us  the  best  test  of  its  value 
and  sincerity.  The  brilliant  orator  seems  to  have 
had  a  special  liking  for  able  and  accomplished  ma- 
trons. In  his  youth  he  sought  their  society  in  order 
to  polish  and  perfect  his  style.  He  speaks  in  spe- 
cial praise  of  Laelia,  the  wife  of  Scaevola  with  whom 
he  studied  law,  also  of  her  daughter  and  grand- 
daughters— all  of  whom  excelled  in  conversation  of 
a  high  order;  he  refers  often  to  Caerellia,  a  woman 
of  learning  and  talent,  with  whom  he  corresponded 
for  many  years ;  and  he  says  that  Caius  Curio  owes 
his  great  fame  as  an  orator  to  the  conversations  in 
his  mother's  house.  Many  other  women  he  men- 
tions whose  attainments  in  literature,  philosophy, 
and  eloquence  did  honor  to  their  sex  and  placed 
them  on  a  level  with  the  great  men  of  their  time. 
This  was  in  the  late  days  of  the  Republic,  when 
genuine  talent  was  not  yet  swamped  in  the  preten- 
sions of  mediocrity. 

The  praise  of  his  daughter  Tullia  is  always  on  his 
lips.  She  was  versed  in  polite  letters,  "  the  best 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

and  most  learned,  of  women,"  and  he  valued  her 
companionship  beyond  anything  in  life.  It  seems 
that  she  was  unfortunate  in  husbands,  and  they  gave 
him  a  good  deal  of  trouble ;  but  when  she  died  the 
light  went  out  of  his  world.  His  letters  are  full  of 
tears,  and  he  plans  the  most  magnificent  of  monu- 
ments. He  would  deify  her,  and  draw  from  all 
writers,  Greek  and  Latin,  to  transmit  to  posterity 
her  perfections  and  his  own  boundless  love.  But 
precious  time  was  lost  in  dreams  of  the  impossible, 
and  swift  fate  overtook  him  before  any  of  them 
crystallized.  Instead  of  the  splendid  temple  that 
was  to  last  forever,  only  a  few  crumbling  stones  of 
his  villa  on  the  lonely  heights  of  Tusculum  are  left 
to-day  to  recall  the  young,  beautiful,  and  gifted 
woman  in  whose  "  sweet  conversation  "  the  great 
statesman  could  "  drop  all  his  cares  and  troubles." 
Here  she  looked  for  the  last  time  across  the  Cam- 
pagna  upon  the  shining  array  of  marbles,  columns, 
and  palaces  that  were  the  pride  of  Rome  in  its  glory, 
and  went  away  from  it  all,  leaving  behind  her  a  fast 
vanishing  name,  the  fragrance  of  a  fresh  young  life, 
and  a  desolate  heart. 

But  if  these  charming  pictures  reveal  a  sympa- 
thetic side  of  the  intimate  life  of  the  new  age,  they 
give  us  also  the  shadows  that  were  creeping  over  it. 
The  great  man,  who  said  so  many  fine  things  and 
did  so  many  weak  ones,  has  always  a  tender  mes- 
sage for  the  little  Attica,  the  daughter  of  his  friend, 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

but  he  fears  the  fortune-hunters,  and  objects  to  a 
husband  proposed  for  her,  because  he  has  paid  court 
to  a  rich  woman  who  is  old  and  has  been  several 
times  married.  "S  For  his  own  wife,  Terentia,  he  has 
less  consideration.  She  is  not  facile  enough,  and 
finds  too  much  fault  with  his  way  of  doing  things. 
Perhaps  she  presses  her  influence  too  far,  and  fails 
to  pay  proper  deference  to  his  authority.  To  be 
sure,  he  calls  her  "  my  light,  my  darling,"  says  she 
is  in  his  thoughts  night  and  day,  praises  her  ability, 
and  trusts  her  judgment  until  his  affairs  begin  to  go 
wrong.  All  this,  however,  does  not  prevent  his 
sending  her  away  after  thirty  years  of  devotion,  and 
marrying  his  lovely  young  ward,  who  is  rich  enough 
to  pay  his  debts.  The  latter  is  divorced  in  turn 
because  she  does  not  sufficiently  mourn  the  loss  of 
his  idolized  daughter,  and  his  closing  years  are  bur- 
dened with  the  care  of  restoring  her  dowry,  which 
draws  from  him  many  a  bitter  complaint.  There  is 
a  strange  note  of  irony  in  the  tone  of  the  much- 
married,  much-sinning,  and  perfidious  Antony,  who 
publicly  censures  the  "  Father  of  his  Country  "  for 
repudiating  a  wife  with  whom  he  has  grown  old. 
But  the  high-spirited  Terentia  solaced  herself  with 
his  friend  Sallust,  and  married  one  or  two  others 
after  his  death.  Evidently  no  hearts  were  broken, 
as  she  lived  some  years  beyond  a  century. 

In  the  literary  circles  of  a  later  generation  we  hear 
of  noble  ladies  of  serious  tastes  meeting  to  con- 

152 


THE    "NEW    WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

verse  about  the  poets.  Juvenal  and  Martial  ridi- 
culed them  as  Moliere  did  the  Precieuses  centuries 
afterward.  "  I  hate  a  woman  who  never  violates 
the  rules  of  grammar,  and  quotes  verses  I  never 
knew,"  says  JuvenaD;  "  A  husband  should  have 
the  privilege  of  coTfhmitting  a  solecism."  He  ob- 
jects to  being  bored  at  supper  with  impertinent 
questions  about  Homer  and  Vergil,  or  misplaced 
sympathy  with  the  unhappy  Dido,  who,  no  doubt, 
ought  to  have  taken  her  desertion  philosophically 
instead  of  making  it  so  unpleasant  for  her  hero 
lover.  He  even  suggests  that  women  blessed  with 
literary  tastes  should  put  on  the  tunics  of  the  bolder 
sex  and  do  various  mannish  things  which  are  some- 
times recommended  by  the  satirists  of  to-day.  It 
is  with  a  sigh  of  regret  that  he  recalls  the  "  good 
old  days  of  poverty  and  morals,"  when  it  was  writ- 
ten on  a  woman's  tombstone  that  she  "  spun  wool 
and  looked  after  her  house."  "  A  good  wife  is 
rarer  than  a  white  crow,"  is  his  amiable  conclusion. 
\  All  this  goes  to  prove  that  in  the  first  century 
women  passed  through  the  same  ordeal  of  criticism 
as  they  have  in  the  nineteenth.  The  satirists  of  to- 
day are  no  kinder  to  the  Dante  and  Browning  clubs, 
and  mourn  equally  over  the  "  good  old  days  "  when 
they  were  in  no  danger  of  a  rival  or  a  critic  at  the 
breakfast- table.  -  Doubtless  that  age  had  its  little 
pretensions  Una  affectations,  as  every  other  great 
age  has  had — not  excepting  our  own.  There  were 

153 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

women  who  talked  platitudes  about  things  of  which 
they  knew  nothing,  and  men  who  did  the  same  thing 
or  worse  on  other  lines  laughed  at  them  just  as 
men  do  now  at  similar  follies,  though  often  without 
the  talent  of  a  Juvenal  or  a  Martial,  and,  it  is  fair  to 
say,  without  their  incredible  coarseness.  The  com- 
ing of  women  into  literature  has  made  the  latter 
practically  impossible. 

But  even  Martial  had  his  better  moments.  He 
speaks  of  a  young  girl  who  has  the  eloquence  of 
Plato,  the  austerity  of  the  philosophers,  and  writes 
verses  worthy  of  a  chaste  Sappho.  One  might  ima- 
gine that  his  enthusiasm  had  run  away  with  his 
prejudices,  if  Martial  could  be  supposed  to  have  had 
enthusiasms,  as  he  warmly  congratulates  the  friend 
who  is  to  marry  this  prodigy.  Possibly  he  pre- 
ferred her  as  the  wife  of  some  one  else,  as  he  stipu- 
lates for  himself,  on  another  occasion,  a  wife  who  is 
"  not  too  learned." 

There  was  a  great  deal  to  censure  in  this  dilet- 
tante world.  The  fashionable  life  of  Rome  had 
drifted  into  hopeless  corruption,  in  spite  of  the 
efforts  of  good  men  and  women  to  stem  the  tide. 
Long  before,  the  Senate  had  ordered  a  temple  to 
Venus  Verticordia,  the  Venus  that  turns  hearts  to 
virtue  ;  but  the  new  goddess  was  not  eminently  suc- 
cessful among  the  votaries  of  pleasure,  who  pre- 
ferred to  offer  incense  to  the  more  beautiful  and 
less  respectable  one.  The  old  patricians  had  their 

154 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

faults  and  sins,  but  the  new  moneyed  aristocracy 
was  a  great  deal  worse,  as  the  noblesse  oblige  had 
ceased  to  exist,  and  there  were  no  moral  ideals  to 
take  the  place  of  it.  "  First  let  us  seek  for  fortune," 
says  the  satirist ;  "  virtue  is  of  no  importance.  Hail 
to  wealth !  "  "  His  Majesty  Gold  "  was  as  powerful 
as  he  is  to-day,  and  his  worship  was  coarser.  "  He 
says  silly  things,  but  money  serves  for  intellect," 
remarks  a  wit  of  the  time.  Literature  declined  with 
morals.  "  These  are  only  stores  and  shops,  these 
schools  in  which  wisdom  is  sold  and  supplied  like 
goods,"  said  one  who  mourned  over  the  degeneracy 
of  the  times.  That  women  should  suffer  with  the 
rest  was  inevitable.  They  are  not  faultless ;  indeed, 
they  are  very  simply  human.  If  they  are  usually 
found  in  the  front  ranks  of  great  moral  movements, 
they  are  not  always  able  to  stand  individually 
against  the  resistless  tide  which  we  call  the  spirit  of 
the  age. 

Ill 

THE  changes  which  a  century  or  so  had  wrought 
in  the  position  and  education  of  women  reacted  on 
manners.  The  pagan  virtues  were  essentially  mas- 
culine ones,  and  even  women  had  always  been  more 
noted  for  courage  and  stoical  heroism  than  for  the 
softer  Christian  qualities  which  are  called  feminine. 
In  the  old  days  they  had  been  subservient  because 

155 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF   OLD    ROME 

they  were  virtually  slaves.  For  the  same  reason 
they  were  expected  to  be  blindly  obedient.  Their 
servile  attitude  toward  men  was  a  duty ;  tradition 
gave  it  the  force  of  a  sentiment.  Nor  did  the  fact 
that  many  Roman  women  had  risen  above  their  con- 
ditions, and  shown  great  dignity  and  strength,  alter 
this  general  relation.  It  was  not  in  their  nature, 
however,  to  be  timid,  or  tender,  or  clinging.  Sen- 
sibility was  a  weakness  and  a  trait  of  inferior  classes. 
Love  was  a  passion,  or  a  duty,  or  a  habit,  but  not  a 
sentiment.  The  new  woman  of  the  golden  age  of 
Augustus  was  strong,  dignified,  self-poised,  and 
commanding.  The  fashionable  set  accented  this 
tone  and  became  haughty,  arrogant,  and  masculine 
in  manner.  It  looked  upon  the  conservative  ma- 
tron who  was  disposed  to  preserve  old  traditions 
as  antiquated.  The  change,  in  its  various  grada- 
tions, was  quite  similar  to  that  which  passed  over 
Anglo-Saxon  women  in  the  century  that  has  just 
closed.  We  also  have  our  golden  mean  of  poise 
and  dignity,  as  represented  by  the  conservative 
who  are  yet  of  the  new  age  in  culture,  breadth, 
and  intelligence ;  we,  too,  have  a  few  of  the  eman- 
cipated who  like  to  demonstrate  their  new-found 
independence  by  a  defiance  of  social  conventions ; 
then  we  have  our  ultra-fashionable  parvenus  who 
fancy  arrogance  a  badge  of  position,  and  pronounced 
manners  a  sign  of  modish  distinction.  Of  these 
classes,  the  first  and  the  last  were  the  most  defined 

156 


THE   "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

in  Roman  society,  but  it  is  mainly  in  the  last  that 
we  find  the  degeneracy  of  morals  which  made  a 
large  section  of  it  infamous. 

Of  the  women  of  the  conservative  ruling  classes 
we  have  pleasant  glimpses  in  the  letters  of  Pliny, 
which  picture  an  intelligent  and  sympathetic  family 
life  that  constantly  recalls  our  own.  His  wife,  Cal- 
phurnia,  sets  his  verses  to  music  and  sings  them, 
greatly  to  his  surprise  and  delight.  She  has  a  taste 
for  books  and  commits  his  compositions  to  memory. 
He  says  she  has  an  excellent  understanding,  con- 
summate prudence,  and  an  affection  for  her  husband 
that  attests  the  purity  of  her  heart.  It  is  not  his 
person  but  his  character  that  she  loves,  so  he  is 
assured  of  lasting  harmony.  When  absent,  he  en- 
treats her  to  write  every  day,  even  twice  a  day.  If 
he  has  only  his  wife  and  a  few  friends  at  his  summer 
villa,  he  has  some  author  to  read  to  them,  and  after- 
ward music  or  an  interlude.  Then  he  walks  with 
his  family  and  talks  of  literature.  The  charming 
little  domestic  traits,  so  unconsciously  revealed  in 
these  letters,  are  as  creditable  to  himself  as  to  the 
wife  who  adores  him.  There  is  a  touch  of  senti- 
ment that  we  rarely  find  in  pagan  life/; 

These  letters  throw  many  side-lights  on  other 
households.  Pliny  has  a  word  of  profound  sym- 
pathy for  the  sorrow  of  a  friend  who  lived  thirty- 
nine  cloudless  years  with  a  wife  whose  virtues  would 
have  made  her  "an  ornament  even  in  former  times," 

157 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

and  was  left  desolate  by  her  loss.  We  find  a  touch- 
ing allusion  to  the  fortitude  of  Fannia,  who  has  the 
qualities  of  a  "  heroine  of  ancient  story."  She  was 
banished  for  supplying  materials  for  her  husband's 
"  Life."  "  Pleasing  in  conversation,  polite  in  ad- 
dress, venerable  in  demeanor,"  she  is  quoted  as  a 
model  for  wives.  She  was  a  worthy  granddaughter 
of  the  famous  Arria,  who  refused  to  survive  her  hus- 
band when  he  was  condemned  to  death,  and  gave 
him  courage  by  first  plunging  the  dagger  into  her 
own  breast,  saying,  "  Pastus,  it  does  not  hurt,"  as 
she  drew  it  out  and  passed  it  to  him.  Another  of 
his  friends  lost  a  daughter  of  fourteen,  who,  he. 
says,  combined  the  wisdom  of  age  and  the  discre- 
tion of  a  matron  with  the  sprightliness  of  youth  and 
the  sweetness  of  virgin  modesty.  She  was  devoted 
to  reading  and  study,  caring  little  for  amusements. 
Pompeius  Saturninus  read  him  some  letters  from  his 
wife  which  were  so  fine  that  he  thought  he  was 
listening  to  Plautus  and  Terence  in  prose;  indeed, 
he  suspects  the  husband  of  writing  them  himself,  in 
spite  of  his  denial,  though  he  considers  him  deserv- 
ing of  equal  praise,  whether  he  wrote  them  or 
trained  her  genius  to  such  a  degree  of  perfection. 
It  is  worthy  of  note  that,  while  these  letters  show 
us  the  intelligent  companionship  between  husbands 
and  wives  which  had  taken  the  place  of  the  old  re- 
lations of  superior  and  inferior,  as  well  as  the  fine 
attainments  of  many  women  and  the  honor  ;n  which 

158 


THE   "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

they  were  held,  they  also  pay  the  highest  tribute  to 
virtues  that  still  shone  brightly  in  an  age  when  it  had 
become  a  fashion  to  speak  of  them  as  things  of  the 
past. 

"  Morals  are  gone,"  said  Seneca.  "  Evil  triumphs. 
All  virtue,  all  justice,  is  disappearing.  That  is  what 
was  exclaimed  in  our  fathers'  days,  what  they  are 
repeating  to-day,  and  what  will  be  the  cry  of  our 
children."  If  we  may  credit  the  history  of  that  age, 
there  was  reason  enough  for  the  cry,  but  there  was 
another  side  to  the  dark  picture.  This  critical 
philosopher  did  not  spare  the  vices  and  follies  of  the 
great  ladies  of  his  time,  and  any  tribute  of  his  to 
the  talents  and  virtues  of  women  is  of  value,/as  it  is 
not  likely  to  incline  to  the  side  of  flattery >\  In  his  "''•• 
letters  of  consolation  to  his  mother,  Helvia,  he  men- 
tions the  fact  that  she  is  "  learned  in  the  principles 
of  all  the  sciences,"  in  spite  of  the  old-fashioned 
notions  of  his  father,  who  "  feared  letters  as  a  means 
of  corruption  for  women."  More  liberal  himself,  he 
exhorts  her  to  return  to  them  as  "  a  source  of  safety, 
consolation,  and  joy.^  To  Marcia  he  writes  in  a 
tone  that  is  appreciative,  though  a  trifle  patronizing : 
"  Who  dares  say  that  nature  in  creating  woman  has 
gifted  her  less  generously,  or  restricted  for  her  the 
sphere  of  the  virtues?  Her  moral  strength,  do  not 
doubt  it,  equals  ours.  .  .  .  Habit  will  render  her, 
like  us,  capable  of  great  efforts,  as  of  great  griefs." 
An  incident  of  his  own  family  life  is  worth  repeat  - 

159 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

ing,  as  it  shows  a  pleasant  and  not  uncommon  side 
of  domestic  relations  at  a  period  when  Roman  morals 
were  at  the  worst.  His  wife  was  solicitous  for  his 
health.  "As  my  life  depends  upon  hers,"  he  says, 
"  I  shall  follow  her  advice,  because  in  doing  so  I  am 
caring  for  her.  Can  anything  be  more  agreeable 
than  to  feel  that  in  loving  your  wife  you  are  loving 
yourself?"  The  devotion  on  her  side  was  more 
heroic,  if  less  reasonable.  When  he  was  politely 
advised  to  take  himself  to  some  other  world  where 
he  would  be  less  in  the  way  of  his  civil  superiors, 
she  insisted  upon  dying  with  him.  He  tried  in 
vain  to  dissuade  her,  but,  finding  her  persistent,  he 
gave  his  consent,  saying :  "  Let  the  fortitude  of  so 
courageous  an  end  be  alike  in  both  of  us,  but  let 
there  be  more  in  your  death  to  win  fame."  Her 
veins  were  opened  with  his ;  but  Nero  did  not  need 
to  get  rid  of  her  just  then,  so  the  attendants  quickly 
bound  her  wounds  and  saved  her.  This  devoted 
Paulina  had  only  the  satisfaction  of  sacrificing  her 
color,  as  she  was  noted  for  her  extreme  pallor  to 
the  end  of  her  life. 

x^,.  We  have  other  letters  from  a  thinker  and  seer  of 
the  next  century,  which  give  us  as  sympathetic  an 
insight  into  the  private  life  of  the  Antonines  as 
Cicero  and  Pliny  give  us  into  that  of  their  own  con- 
temporaries in  the  two  preceding  ones.  Nowhere 
does  Marcus  Aurelius  appear  in  so  human  a  light  as 
in  this  correspondence  with  Fronto,the  distinguished 

1 60 


THE    "NEW    WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

master  and  philosopher,  which  came  to  us  at  a  late 
day  out  of  the  silence  of  ages.  It  reveals  one  of 
the  rare  friendships  of  the  world,  and  incidentally 
throws  a  pleasant  light  on  the  family  relations  of  the 
wisest  and  simplest  of  emperors/^ 

History  has  cast  a  cloud  7>ver  the  wives  of  the 
Antonines — whether  justly  or  not  we  can  never 
know.  In  an  age  of  great  vices,  even  virtue  is  not 
safe,  and  the  scandal-lover  has  always  delighted  to 
tear  fair  names.  But  the  testimony  of  a  husband 
surely  ought  to  count  for  more  than  the  flippant 
gossip  of  the  idle  voluptuary  or  the  witty  sneer  of 
the  satirist.  Referring  to  the  elder  Faustina,  An- 
toninus Pius  says :  "  I  would  rather  spend  my  life 
with  her  in  Gyaros  than  live  without  her  in  a  pal- 
ace." As  this  desolate  abode  of  the  exile  was  sup- 
posed to  be  very  uncomfortable,  the  compliment  was 
not  a  light  one.  It  is  not  in  such  terms  that  men 
write  of  faithless  wives,  nor  is  it  in  the  nature  of  such 
women  to  wear  the  white  veil  of  innocence  for  a 
series  of  years  in  the  presence  of  those  nearest  to 
them.  There  was  a  temple  built  in  her  honor  which 
still  keeps  guard  as  a  church  over  the  Roman  forum, 
a  permanent  monument  to  the  devotion  of  this  ten- 
der husband.  A  charitable  institution  for  girls,  that 
bore  her  name,  has  long  since  gone  the  way  of  all 
perishable  things. 

A     In  the  letters  of  Aurelius,  which   cover  a  wide 
range  of  thought  and  experience,  there  are  constant 
11  161 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

references  to  his  family.  It  is  difficult  to  believe 
the  younger  Faustina  as  wicked  as  men  have  painted 
her.  One  of  the  most  beautiful  women  of  her  time, 
as  brilliant  and  sweet  as  she  was  beautiful,  the  idol 
of  her  household,  the  object  of  affectionate  care  on 
the  part  of  her  husband,  this  gracious  woman  has 
been  a  mystery  to  successive  generations.  What  if 
the  lightly  spoken  word  of  a  malicious  rival,  or  a 
dark  insinuation  from  some  impertinent  admirer 
whose  vanity  she  may  have  wounded,  kindled  a  fire 
which  the  ages  cannot  put  out?  Such  things  have 
been,  and  may  be  again.  "  I  thank  the  gods  for 
giving  me  a  wife  so  kind,  so  tender  to  her  children, 
so  simple,"  said  the  philosopher,  who  kept  his  soul 
at  a  serene  altitude  above  things  of  sense ;  but  he 
broke  down  when  his  children  suffered  or  died,  and 
mourned  this  much-loved  wife  as  a  saint,  giving  her 
divine  honors.  He  also  put  a  gold  statue  of  her  in 
the  seat  she  had  been  in  the  habit  of  occupying  at 
the  theater,  and  had  her  represented  in  a  bas-relief 
as  borne  to  heaven,  while  he  gazed  after  her  with 
longing  eyes.  "_, 

Fronto  writes  that  the  mother  of  Marcus  Aurelius 
laughingly  declares  herself  jealous  of  him.  He  asks 
tenderly  after  the  ailing  domnula,  who  is  the  idol  of 
her  father's  heart.  Of  his  own  daughter  Gratia  he 
has  much  to  tell,  playing  gracefully  with  her  name. 
He  chats  pleasantly  of  sleep,  of  health,  of  dreams, 
of  the  art  of  speech,  in  which  he  was  himself  a  master. 

162 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

But  this  is  varied  with  words  of  affection,  with  ten- 
der references  to  the  children,  their  pretty  voices 
and  their  winning  ways.  He  had  given  the  little 
prince  a  silver  trumpet  on  his  birthday,  and  draws 
a  charming  picture  of  the  group  about  their  mother, 
the  beautiful  Faustina.  But  he  loses  his  own  ad- 
mirable and  much-loved  wife ;  then  his  grandson 
dies ;  and  his  heart  is  torn  with  grief,  as  with  sym- 
pathy for  the  sorrow  of  the  gentle  Gratia.  Joy 
falls  away  from  the  spent  life  of  the  white-haired 
philosopher.  He  finds  nothing  to  bind  him  longer 
to  a  sad  world.  His  silvery  periods  have  lost  their 
charm.  He  lays  down  his  pen,  and  his  last  words 
are  full  of  pathos.  He  writes  to  an  emperor  who, 
like  himself,  has  lived  on  the  heights  of  a  calm 
reason.  The  blows  of  fate  have  struck  them  both, 
and  they  weep,  like  others. 

^  I  have  quoted  more  or  less  from  the  letters  of 
four  thoughtful  and  clear-sighted  men,  because  their 
personal  details  and  general  tone  go  farther  than 
any  assertion  to  prove  the  pure  and  intelligent 
character  of  a  large  section  of  Roman  womanhood 
and  its  refining  influence  in  the  family^  They  are  a 
flattering  tribute,  not  only  to  the  women  of  the  new 
age,  but  to  the  fine  qualities  of  a  corresponding  cir- 
cle of  men.  The  life  revealed  by  these  distinguished 
observers  who  have  talked  so  familiarly  of  its  every- 
day side  is  certainly  remote  from  that  which  has 
been  dwelt  upon  by  satirists  and  historians,  but  we 

163 


THE    "NEW   WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

cannot  doubt  that  it  represents  the  domestic  rela- 
tions of  an  important  class.  It  is  fair  to  presume 
that  the  women  of  culture  and  virtue  who  came 
within  their  horizon  were  not  exceptions. 

IV 

OF  the  increasing  influence  of  Roman  matrons,  a 
strong  proof  may  be  found  in  the  public  honors 
they  began  to  receive.  Many  of  these  were  of  a 
conveniently  perfunctory  sort,  and  meant  little  more 
than  a  tribute  to  the  vanity  of  a  family  which  de- 
manded respect  for  its  name;  but  they  had  their 
significance.  It  became  a  fashion  to  give  women  a 
semblance  of  power  that  was  not  always  genuine,  and 
to  compensate  them  for  any  sorrow  or  neglect  they 
might  have  had  in  this  world  with  a  fine  position 
and  a  grand  title,  which  cost  little,  in  the  next. 
Julius  Caesar  was  far  from  a  model  husband,  but  he 
celebrated  the  virtues  of  his  young  wife  Cornelia, 
whom  he  loved  devotedly,  in  an  eloquent  oration 
over  her  remains.  He  also  pronounced  a  public 
eulogy  for  his  aunt  Julia,  wife  of  Marius  who  came 
in  for  a  large  share  of  the  glory.  Augustus,  a  boy 
of  twelve,  gave  a  funeral  oration  over  his  grand- 
mother. He  also  honored  his  sister,  the  amiable 
Octavia,  with  a  eulogy  and  a  national  funeral,  the 
first  one  ever  given  to  a  woman  who  was  not  a  sov- 
ereign?^ If  there  have  been  others  I  do  not  recall 

164 


THE    "NEW    WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

them.  He  decreed  divine  honors  to  Livia,  but  he 
died  before  her,  and  her  ungrateful  son  forbade  them, 
though  the  more  appreciative  Senate  proclaimed 
her  "  Mother  of  her  Country,"  and  voted  a  funeral 
arch  in  her  memory.  Later,  this  Roman  Juno  was 
placed  in  the  ranks  of  the  gods  by  her  grand- 
nephew  Claudius,  who  was  not  wholly  disinterested, 
as  he  did  not  wish  to  owe  his  descent  to  a  simple 
mortal.  The  emptiness  of  some  of  these  numerous 
honors  was  aptly  illustrated  by  Nero,  who  killed  his 
young  but  not  immaculate  wife,  Poppaea,  with  a  kick, 
then,  like  a  dutiful  husband,  pronounced  her  eulogy 
and  made  her  a  diva!  Many  of  them,  however, 
were  paid  to  worth  and  to  great  services  for  the  State. 
"  I  feel  that  I  am  becoming  a  god,"  said  Vespa- 
sian, when  dying,  with  a  skeptical  smile  at  his  ap- 
proaching apotheosis.  Women  are  more  trustful. 
Perhaps  they  took  their  divine  honors  more  seri- 
ously, and  found  in  them  a  sort  of  consolation,  as 
when,  in  later  ages,  they  looked  wistfully  from  the 
sorrows  of  life  toward  a  saint's  crown. 
*\  We  have  seen  the  Roman  women  of  primitive 
times  reach  great  heights  of  courage  and  patriotism  ; 
we  have  seen  them  rise  from  virtual  bondage  to  a 
measure  of  freedom  and  consideration.  In  the  days 
of  Scipio  and  the  Gracchi  they  had  won  the  priv- 
ileges of  education,  and  a  certain  respect  for  their 
intellectual  abilities,  as  well  as  for  their  virtues. 
We  find  them  later  not  only  noted  for  fine  domestic 


THE    "NEW    WOMAN"    OF    OLD    ROME 

^ 

qualities,  but  patrons  of  literature,  and  helpful  com- 
panions of  great  husbands  and  sonsl\  The  last  days 
of  the  Republic  saw  many  stTong  and  capable 
women,  and  we  begin  to  trace  their  influence  in 
large  affairs.  The  instances  were  not  numerous, 
perhaps,  but  individual  talent  asserted  itself.  With 
the  new  intelligence  they  moved  rapidly,  as  our 
women  have  done,  and  apparently  without  aggres- 
sion. But  it  was  not  until  the  privileges  of  rank 
offset  in  a  degree  the  disabilities  of  sex  that  the 
Roman  woman  reached  the  height  of  her  power  and 
her  honors.  No  doubt  she  sometimes  schemed  for 
a  throne  in  the  interest  of  a  husband  or  a  son,  but 
she  often  proved  herself  eminently  qualified  for  her 
own  part  in  its  duties  and  responsibilities.  If  her 
talents  and  energies  sometimes  went  wrong  in  the 
lurid  and  immoral  world  in  which  she  found  herself, 
they  were  more  frequently  exerted  for  the  general 
good. 


1 66 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN    OF 
IMPERIAL    ROME 


SOME    FAMOUS   WOMEN    OF 
IMPERIAL    ROME 


.    Three  Types  of  Roman  Womanhood    • 

•    Livia    •    Octavia    •   Julia    • 

.    Corruption  of  the  Age  not  Due  to  Women    • 

Persecution  of  Virtue    •    Multiplication  of  Divorces 

•    Good  Women  in  Public  Life    • 
•    Plotina    •   Julia  Domna    •   Julia  Maesa    • 

•    Soaemias    •    Mamasa    • 
.    The  Old  Type  Gives  Place  to  the  New    • 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN    OF 
IMPERIAL    ROME 


F  one  wishes  to  gain  a  clear  notion  of 
the  dominant  traits  of  the  Roman 
woman  of  twenty  centuries  ago, 
there  is  no  better  way  than  to  walk 
observantly  through  the  old  galleries 
where  so  many  of  them  still  live  in  marble,  side  by 
side  with  the  men  who  made  or  marred  their  for- 
tunes. There,  graven  in  stone,  one  sees  at  a  glance 
the  strength,  the  passion,  the  pride,  the  ambition, 
that  left  its  stamp  upon  an  age.  There  too  is  the 
weakness,  the  sensuality,  the  arrogance,  the  cruelty, 
that  ruined  a  life  and  brought  misery  upon  a  gener- 
ation. Most  of  these  women  belonged  to  a  class 
that  held  a  conspicuous  place  in  the  public  view  by 
virtue  of  its  position.  Some  were  wicked,  a  few 
were  great,  and  many  were  good  though  they  rarely 

169 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN 

get  the  credit  of  it.  To  make  them  live  again  is  not 
easy,  perhaps  not  possible,  but  we  gather  from  many 
a  record  curious  and  interesting  facts  regarding 
them.  Their  surroundings  are  measurably  familiar 
to  us.  We  know  how  they  looked,  how  they  dressed 
their  hair,  how  they  wore  their  robes,  how  they 
carried  themselves.  With  here  and  there  a  trait, 
an  act,  a  passing  word,  an  anecdote,  in  their  relations 
to  men  and  society,  we  may  compose  a  picture 
which,  if  not  exact,  will  give  a  fair  idea  of  the 
manner  of  women  they  were. 

There  were  three  matrons  in  the  family  of  the 
first  emperor  who  may  be  taken  as  representatives 
of  three  dominant  types  of  Roman  womanhood.  In 
Livia,  we  have  the  woman  of  affairs ;  in  Octavia, 
the  woman  of  the  family ;  in  Julia,  the  woman  of 
the  gay  world.  The  first  had  before  all  things  the 
genius  of  administration  which  was  the  special  gift 
of  her  race;  the  second  united  the  sweetest  family 
affections  with  loyalty  and  moral  strength ;  the  last 
was  of  the  numerous  and  dangerous  class  that  made 
of  society  an  occupation,  and  of  pleasure  an  end. 

Of  the  long  line  of  capable  women  who  had  so 
strong  and  so  lasting  an  influence  in  Roman  affairs 
— sometimes  for  good  and  sometimes  for  ill — the 
first  and  the  best  known  was  Livia.  Standing  as 
she  did  in  the  blazing  light  that  shines  upon  a  throne, 
we  see  her  on  many  sides — if  not  always  clearly,  at 
least  in  bold  outlines.  That  she  had  beauty,  tact, 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

fascination,  and  a  gracious  address,  doubtless  counted 
for  much  in  her  youth ;  but  it  was  through  her  wise 
judgment,  far-seeing  intellect,  well-poised  character, 
and  keen  practical  sense  of  values  that  this  remark- 
able woman  shared  the  fortunes  and  held  the  affec- 
tion of  Augustus  for  more  than  half  a  century,  and 
had  a  voice  in  the  destinies  of  Rome  for  seventy 
years.  She  has  been  given  the  purity  of  Diana,  the 
benevolence  of  Ceres,  the  wisdom  and  craft  of  Mi- 
nerva. There  are  many  busts  and  statues  of  her,  but 
they  vary,  and  it  is  not  possible  to  know  which  best 
represents  the  real  woman.  We  see  her  in  marble 
as  Ceres — a  commanding  figure,  with  strength  in 
every  line.  The  passion  that  lies  in  the  delicate, 
half-sensuous  curve  of  the  lips  is  overshadowed  by 
the  will  that  shows  itself  in  the  firm  poise  of  the 
head,  and  the  intellect  that  sits  in  the  ample  fore- 
head and  looks  out  of  the  serene  eyes.  "  In  fea- 
tures Venus,  in  manner  Juno,"  says  Ovid,  who  had 
ample  reason  to  know  the  power  of  this  discreet 
matron.  She  frowned  upon  the  license  of  the  gay 
set  to  which  he  belonged,  and  it  is  not  unlikely  that 
she  had  something  to  do  with  the  hopeless  exile  that 
pressed  so  heavily  on  his  last  years.  But  he  de- 
clares that  "  she  has  raised  her  head  above  all  vices," 
dwelling  upon  her  strength  and  the  fact  that  "  with 
the  power  to  injure,  she  has  injured  no  one." 

Whatever  the  faults  of  Livia  may  have  been,  no 
shadow  rested  on  her  womanly  honor.     Probably 

171   • 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN 

she  had  no  choice  when,  at  eighteen,  the  emperor 
took  her  from  her  husband — who  found  it  best  to 
submit  amiably  where  the  caprices  of  his  sovereign 
were  concerned — and  made  her  his  wife,  this  com- 
plaisant but  elderly  soldier  of  culture  and  influence 
acting  as  her  father  or  guardian  in  the  ceremony, 
and  dying  soon  after.  If  he  bore  any  ill  will  it  does 
not  appear,  as  he  left  his  two  children  to  the  care  of 
his  successor.  At  the  same  time,  Augustus  sent 
away  his  own  wife,  the  too  jealous  and  exacting 
mother  of  Julia,  on  the  day  of  his  daughter's  birth. 
The  only  failing  of  Scribonia  seems  to  have  been 
that  she  was  imperious  and  did  not  bear  her  wrongs 
with  sufficient  equanimity. 

This  new  union  lasted  fifty-two  years,  and  the 
last  recorded  words  of  the  husband  were,  "  Livia, 
farewell,  and  do  not  forget  our  love."  To  some 
one  who  asked  her  how  she  retained  her  influence  so 
long,  she  replied :  "  That  comes  from  my  modera- 
tion and  my  honesty.  I  have  done  with  joy  all  that 
he  wished,  without  trying  to  meddle  with  his  affairs 
or  showing  the  least  jealousy  as  to  his  infidelities, 
which  I  never  seemed  to  see."  As  a  recipe  for  the 
management  of  husbands  the  last  might  be  open  to 
grave  objection,  from  a  woman's  point  of  view,  but 
it  was  the  undisputed  privilege  of  Roman  men,  in- 
deed of  all  men  in  early  times, — to  say  nothing  of 
later  ones, — to  be  made  comfortable  under  any  cir- 
cumstances ;  and  they  made  no  pretense  to  morality. 

172 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

As  to  meddling,  Livia  evidently  did  it  as  though 
she  did  it  not,  as  it  was  well  known  that  she  tem- 
pered the  harshness  of  her  husband  and  modified 

/  many  of  his  stern  decrees. 

>4  Perhaps  a  better  explanation  of  his  devotion 
might  have  been  found  in  the  rare  union  of  beauty 
and  intelligence  with  the  domestic  virtues  which  he 
took  so  much  pleasure  in  extolling.  In  the  waning 
of  her  personal  charms,  she  took  care  not  to  lose 
the  attractions  of  a  versatile  intellect  and  agreeable 
manners,  also  to  sheathe  in  velvet  the  delicate, 
closely  welded  chains  of  daily  habit.  She  knew 
how  to  submit  and  she  knew  how  to  rule.  Since 
life  is  always  a  series  of  compromises,  perhaps  its 
finest  art  lies  just  here.  Maintaining  the  traditions 
of  her  sex,  she  wove  and  made  her  husband's 
clothes.  As  she  had  six  hundred  or  more  atten- 
dants to  fold  her  own  garments  and  minister  to  her 
comfort,  it  is  not  likely  that  these  domestic  duties 
weighed  very  heavily ,;  Doubtless  a  little  supervision 
sufficed  for  a  great  deal  of  credit.  A  well-managed 
household  does  not  imply  doing  things  one's  self  so 
much  as  the  knowledge  and  ability  to  put  the  ma- 
chinery in  running  order ;  and  Livia  was  before  all 
things  executive,  which  has  much  more  to  do  with 
brains  than  with  virtues. 

Like  her  husband,  or  because  of  him,  she  hated 
luxury  and  ostentation  in  her  daily  life.  Her  house 
was  small  and  simple,  but  decorated  with  taste.  The 

173 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN 

pleasures  of  sense  had  little  weight  with  her ;  indeed, 
there  was  a  trace  of  asceticism  in  her  character  and 
in  her  way  of  living.  She  had  various  theories 
which  we  call  fads.  These  are  specially  noticeable 
in  an  epicurean  age,  when  a  fortune  was  spent  on  a 
dinner.  She  limited  herself  to  a  diet  of  fruits  and 
vegetables,  drank  a  certain  wine  that  suited  the 
health  better  than  the  palate,  and  had  great  faith  in 
the  virtues  of  cold  water.  Augustus  was  cured  of  a 
grave  malady  by  cold  baths,  but  rumor  said  that 
the  young  Marcellus  died  of  them.  Just  why  Livia 
was  blamed  is  not  clear,  as  the  treatment  was  pre- 
scribed by  Musa,  the  great  physician ;  but  it  was 
new,  and  she  had  made  it  a  fashion. 

That  she  had  many  lovable  traits  is  shown  not 
only  by  the  lifelong  devotion  of  her  husband,  but 
in  the  adoring  affection  of  those  who  served  her.  In 
recent  years  a  large  columbarium  has  been  found 
which  she  consecrated  to  the  ashes  of  her  numerous 
household,  each  of  whom  had  his  little  urn  with  a 
fitting  inscription.  She  used  her  large  fortune  gen- 
erously, helped  the  persecuted,  established  a  school 
for  poor  but  well-born  children,  and  did  a  great 
many  charitable  things?1,  It  may  be  true  that  she 
was  cruel  to  her  enemies,  but  she  was  loyal  to  her 
friends  and  untiring  in  their  interests.  Wisely  hold- 
ing the  threads  of  a  large  and  diverse  patronage, 
she  kept  herself  in  touch  with  the  intelligence  of 
the  new  age,  and  was  inspired  by  a  broad  and 

174 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

catholic  public  spirit.  She  is  said  to  have  built  and 
endowed  the  Temple  of  Concord,  also  a  portico 
rich  in  ancient  paintings,  which  bore  her  name. 
If  she  was  at  home  at  the  wheel  or  loom  and 
looking  after  the  personal  comfort  of  her  husband, 
she  was  equally  so  in  the  coteries  of  the  learned 
and  in  the  councils  of  State.  She  was  called  cold, 
but  there  were  slumbering  depths  of  feeling  in 
that  strong  soul  which*  few  had  fathomed.  When 
her  son  Drusus  died,  it  is  said  that  only  the 
tender  interference  of  her  husband  prevented  her 
from  starving  herself  to  death  in  the  violence  of 
her  grief.  But  she  quickly  regained  her  poise,  and 
went  about  her  duties  public  and  private  with  no 
outward  sign  of  the  sorrow  that  had  come  to  her 
like  a  bolt  out  of  a  clear  sky.  She  had  much  of  the 
fortitude  of  the  Stoics  in  the  days  when  philosophy 
was  the  fashionable  religion.  But  she  went  to  the 
wise  and  learned  Arius  for  help  and  consolation,  as 
women  of  later  ages  have  gone  to  a  spiritual  adviser. 
Seneca  holds  her  up  as  a  model  of  strength  and  well- 
regulated  sensibility.  He  dwells  upon  her  heroic 
qualities  and  contrasts  her  favorably  with  the  more 
emotional  Octavia,  who  mourned  her  life  away  over 
the  death  of  her  son  and  other  domestic  misfortunes. 
There  was  another  and  less  sympathetic  side 
to  her  character.  Without  imagination,  and  little 
touched  with  sentiment,  her  life  seems  to  have  been 
guided  by  a  calm  reason  which  was  always  at  the 

175 


SOME    FAMOUS   WOMEN 

service  of  a  towering  ambition — a  trait  which,  sooner 
or  later,  is  sure  to  make  the  gentlest  man  or  woman 
hard  and  cruel  toward  any  one  who  stands  in  its 
way.  This  ambition  was  her  master  passion,  and  in 
its  direction  lay  her  faults.  \To  her  judgment  and 
discrimination  was  added  the  craft  of  a  diplomatist. 
Her  grandson  Caligula  called  her  a  "  Ulysses  in 
petticoats."  That  she  had  any  hand  in  the  singular 
falling  away,  one  after  another,  of  her  husband's 
direct  heirs,  or  that  she  ever  passed  the  point  where 
intrigue  becomes  crime,  is  the  purest  surmise.  She 
had  too  many  enemies  in  his  family,  who  feared  and 
envied  her,  to  escape  calumny ;  but  though  many 
dark  rumors  were  in  the  air,  nothing  was  ever 
proved.  One  youth  was  ill  and  died  in  Gaul,  an- 
other in  the  far  East.  It  is  too  much  to  suppose 
that  she  could  safely  have  helped  them  out  of  the 
'•  world  at  that  distance,  even  had  she  wished  to  do  so. 
\  That  she  schemed  long  and  successfully  to  raise  her 
son  Tiberius  to  the  throne  is  certain.  That  he  re- 
paid her  with  a  great  deal  of  ingratitude  is  equally 
so.  Perhaps  he  could  not  forget  that  it  was  her 
ambition  which  compelled  him  to  send  away  his 
much-loved  wife,  Vipsania, — whom  he  could  never 
meet  afterward  without  tears, — to  marry  the  already 
notorious  Julia,  for  whom  he  had  a  distinct  aversion. 
But  no  one  then  stopped  to  consider  sensibilities. 
If  Livia  was  sometimes  hard  and  cruel,  she  lived  in 
an  age  when  people  who  did  many  kind  and  gen- 

176 


OF   IMPERIAL   ROME 

erous  things  had  no  hesitation  in  walking  over  a 
rival,  crushing  an  enemy,  or  even  courteously  sug- 
gesting to  a  friend  who  became  inconvenient  that  it 
would  be  wise  for  him  to  take  himself  out  of  the 
world.  The  man  of  to-day  is  content  with  crushing 
rivals  and  ruining  enemies  in  the  name  of  high- 
sounding  virtues,  but  he  has  grown  humane,  and 
lets  them  live.  The  time  when  fierce  ambitions 
drove  innocent  victims  out  of  life  is  gone  by.  But 
we  can  judge  people  only  by  the  standards  of  their 
own  day,  and  there  is  much  evidence  that  Livia  sur- 
passed those  of  her  time  in  justice  and  compassion. 
\  Fortune  certainly  favored  the  aspiring  empress. 
Her  gentle  sister-in-law,  Octavia,  died  in  good  time 
for  her  ends.  The  brilliant  Julia,  who  won  hearts 
and  stood  in  her  way,  plunged  recklessly  to  her 
own  ruin,  taking  with  her  into  a  hopeless  exile  the 
wronged  but  troublesome  Scribonia.  Of  this  step- 
daughter's sons,  two  were  dead  in  a  far  country, 
and  the  remaining  one  was  chained  for  his  vices  to 
a  desolate  rock  in  the  sea.  Of  her  daughters,  one 
followed  in  the  footsteps  and  the  fate  of  her  unfor- 
tunate mother ;  the  other  was  the  first  Agrippina,  a 
proud,  imperious  woman  with  her  mother's  beauty 
and  her  father's  inflexible  will  and  courage.  This 
granddaughter  of  Augustus,  so  noted  for  her  vir- 
tues, her  talents,  and  her  sorrows,  had  followed  her 
husband's  fortunes  with  wifely  devotion,  commanded 
the  adoring  soldiers  in  his  absence,  and  returned 

177 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN 

heartbroken,  with  his  ashes,  to  stir  up  Rome  against 
his  supposed  murderer,  whose  wife,  one  of  Livia's 
friends,  was  implicated.  Sure  of  the  justice  of  her 
cause  and  the  sympathy  of  the  people,  she  defied 
the  cruel  Tiberius  and  the  cool  Li  via, — who  was  bent 
upon  saving  her  possibly  innocent  favorites, — to  be 
finally  sent  to  starve  on  the  rocky  islet  where  her 
erring  mother  had  expiated  her  follies  and  her  vices. 
She  was  a  tragical  figure,  this  spirited  and  haughty 
Agrippina  with  the  face  and  air  of  a  Minerva  and 
the  fiery  spirit  of  Mars,  who  paid  so  heavy  a  pen- 
alty for  her  virtue  and  her  loyalty.  It  is  said  that 
Livia  interceded  for  her,  though  without  avail ;  also 
that  she  supported  the  second  hapless  Julia  until  her 
death.  Whether  this  was  a  stroke  of  diplomacy,  or 
the  impulse  of  a  pitying  heart,  we  cannot  know. 

The  center  of  a  hostile  group,  it  is  clear  that 
Livia's  role  was  a  difficult  one,  and  the  skill  with 
which  she  disentangled  these  conflicting  interests  is 
the  best  proof  of  her  insight  and  worldly  tact.  She 
had  the  instinct  of  leadership  which  divines  men, 
women,  and  possibilities,  and  is  swift  to  bend  cir- 
cumstances to  its  own  ends.  If  she  had  her  full 
share  of  troubles  and  chagrins,  she  hid  them  within 
her  heart,  kept  her  own  counsel  in  perilous  crises, 
and  pursued  her  way  with  the  calmness  of  a  strong 
soul.  By  a  singular  fatality,  every  human  barrier 
was  swept  from  her  path,  some  by  fate  and  their 
own  misdoings,  some  by  more  kindly  nature,  and 

178 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

some  by  intrigues,  the  mysteries  of  which  we  cannot 
fathom.  In  the  end  she  dominated  friends  and 
enemies  alike. 

\  But,  in  spite  of  her  success,  the  last  of  her  eighty- 
eight  years  were  burdened  with  griefs.  Her  heart 
was  wounded  in  the  tenderest  point  by  the  son  for 
whom  she  had  toiled  and  schemed ;  her  pride  was 
humiliated,  and  her  hopes  were  dashed.  That  she 
played  the  sovereign  and  became  capricious  and 
exacting,  was  perhaps  in  the  nature  of  things.  No 
one  was  ever  more  flattered  and  honored  by  an 
admiring  people.  The  Senate  paid  court  to  her, 
her  receptions  were  officially  announced,  her  signa- 
ture was  attached  to  decrees,  she  was  attended  by 
lictors  when  she  went  out,  and  had  an  altar  on  which 
her  name  was  adored.  She  had  a  conspicuous  place 
among  the  white-robed  vestals  and  was  made  a 
priestess  of  Augustus.  When  she  was  ill  the  world 
mourned ;  when  she  recovered  there  were  fetes  and 
votive  offerings.  "  A  woman  in  all  things  more 
comparable  to  the  gods  than  to  men,  who  knew  how 
to  use  her  power  so  as  to  turn  away  peril  and  ad- 
vance the  most  deserving,"  said  one  of  her  contem- 
poraries. She  remained  to  the  end  a  stately  figure 
among  women  who  have  held  the  reality  of  power 
without  its  titles,  not  through  the  arts  of  the  co- 
quette, but  through  tact,  wisdom,  foresight,  and 
intellectual  force.  With  less  temperament  and  es- 
thetic quality,  she  recalls  Aspasia  in  her  vigor,  her 

179 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN 

mental  grasp,  and  her  power  to  hold  the  affection  of 
a  great  man  in  an  age  when  such  love  seems  to  have 
been  rare.  Perhaps  we  find  a  closer  resemblance  in 
Mme.  de  Maintenon,  who  combined  her  strength, 
her  cold  reason,  and  her  political  sagacity  with  a 
finer  modern  culture.  It  may  be  that  the  latter 
used  her  power  less  wisely,  but  she  was  a  sadder 
woman.  She  reached  the  goal  of  her  ambition 
only  after  the  loss  of  her  illusions,  if  she  ever  had 
them,  and  the  task  of  catering  to  the  caprices  of  a 
spoiled  monarch  was  too  much  for  her.  The  rec- 
ords of  her  life  reveal  too  surely  the  tragedy  of  a 
soul ;  she  lacked  the  stoical  endurance  to  suffer  and 
make  no  sign.  Livia  apparently  never  ceased  to 
love  the  husband  of  her  youth,  and  they  worked  in 
sympathy.  With  this  firm  foundation  of  happiness, 
all  things  were  possible.  One  can  point  to  no  mis- 
takes that  were  made  through  her  counsels,  and 
their  weight  is  shown  in  the  letters  of  Augustus 
himself.  Of  her  wisdom  and  moderation,  no  better 
evidence  is  needed  than  the  unparalleled  cruelties 
of  her  son  as  soon  as  her  restraining  influence  was 
gone. 

We  have  able  and  gifted  women  to-day  who  are 
companions  or  mothers  of  great  rulers,  but  I  can 
recall  no  one  not  a  reigning  queen  who  has  a  like 
influence  or  has  received  equal  honors.  Have 
women  of  masterful  character  lost  the  subtle  art  of 
fascination  to  make  it  available,  or  are  modern 

1 80 


OF   IMPERIAL   ROME 

rulers  smaller  men,  who  fear  a  rival?  With  us, 
women  of  this  type  find  their  place  as  presidents  of 
charitable  associations  or  powerful  clubs,  or  leaders 
of  a  conservative  society.  Sometimes  they  are 
better  known  as  wives  and  helpers  of  men  with 
political  aspirations.  But  we  rarely  hear  of  them 
in  the  latter  role,  as  they  are  usually  lost  in  a  glory 
which  they  often  make  but  do  not  visibly  share. 

II 

IN  striking  contrast  to  the  many-sided  Livia  is 
the  less  dominating  but  more  sympathetic  Octavia, 
who  lives  through  her  virtues  and  her  sufferings 
rather  than  her  talents.  This  much-loved  sister  of 
Augustus  represents  the  conservative  element  of  the 
new  age,  with  its  amiable  weaknesses  and  time- 
honored  graces.  The  idol  of  her  brother,  who, 
nevertheless,  did  not  hesitate  to  sacrifice  her  to  his 
own  interests  and  ambitions,  she  was  the  victim  of 
lifelong  misfortune.  She  was  said  to  be  more 
beautiful  than  her  rival,  Cleopatra.  If  her  likeness 
in  marble  can  be  trusted,  she  had  not  the  air  of  com- 
mand that  one  sees  in  so  many  statues  of  Roman 
women.  There  is  more  of  sensibility  in  the  poise 
of  the  delicately  shaped  head,  with  its  broad,  low 
forehead.  In  the  drooping  corners  of  the  full,  ten- 
der mouth  lies  the  sorrow  of  years  fallen  into  a  set- 
tled melancholy.  But  there  is  no  lack  of  strength 

181 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN 

in  the  face,  which  shows  also  a  quality  of  clear  sense 
and  practical  judgment.  She  was  noted  for  dignity, 
reserve  that  verged  upon  coldness,  and  great  sim- 
plicity of  manner.  Her  reputation  was  without  a 
cloud.  It  was  the  wish  of  her  brother  to  take  her 
from  her  first  husband  and  marry  her  to  Pompey,  in 
order  to  cement  an  alliance,  but  this  proposal  she 
absolutely  refused. 

\  After  the  death  of  Marcellus  she  was  given,  for 
reasons  of  State,  to  the  cowardly  and  perfidious 
Antony,  the  Senate  even  setting  aside  a  law  that 
required  a  woman  to  wait  ten  months  before  remar- 
riage. It  was  thought  that  her  beauty,  with  her 
graces  of  mind  and  character,  might  win  him  from 
his  follies — sad  illusion,  and  source  of  many  trage- 
dies. She  composed  grave  differences  and  used  her 
influence  for  peace.  When  she  returned  from 
Athens,  where  she  spent  the  first  years  of  her  mar- 
riage and  was  greatly  loved  for  her  gentle  qualities 
and  her  fortitude  in  sorrow,  she  entreated  her 
brother  to  forego  his  warlike  purposes.  "  The  eyes 
of  the  world  are  necessarily  turned  on  one  who  is 
the  wife  of  Antony  and  the  sister  of  Caesar,"  she 
said ;  "  and  should  these  chiefs  of  the  empire,  mis- 
led by  hasty  counsels,  involve  the  whole  in  war, 
whatever  the  event,  it  will  be  unhappy  for  me." 
She. gained  concessions  from  each,  and  averted  the 
immediate  trouble. 

But  this  conciliating  spirit  did  not  prevent  the 
182 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

fickle  Antony  from  breaking  her  heart,  as  he  had 
that  of  the  fiery  and  ambitious  Fulvia.  The  strong- 
est proof  of  her  sweetness  of  temper  and  greatness 
of  soul  may  be  found  in  the  fact  that  she  brought 
up  the  children  of  Fulvia  with  her  own,  also  the 
children  of  Cleopatra,  after  the  latter's  death. 

The  worst  fault  ascribed  to  Octavia  was  aiding  in 
the  divorce  of  her  own  innocent  daughter  from 
Agrippa,  the  stern  old  soldier  who  was  chosen  by 
Augustus  as  a  desirable  husband  for  his  only  child, 
the  young  and  widowed  Julia.  Whatever  ambitions 
she  may  have  had  were  crushed  by  the  death  of  her 
youthful  son.  Naturally  she  did  not  love  the  in- 
triguing sister-in-law,  who  ruled  all  about  her  in  a 
way  that  was  none  the  less  sure  because  it  was  quiet. 
It  is  even  possible  that  she  was  not  unwilling  to  do 
what  came  in  her  path  to  circumvent  the  schemes  of 
Livia  for  her  own  family.  "  She  detested  all 
mothers,"  says  Seneca,  "  and,  above  all,  Livia,"  who 
had  domestic  joys  which  she  had  not.  But  Seneca 
may  not  have  been  quite  just,  as  he  preferred 
women  of  a  strong,  heroic  type,  and  this  mother  of 
sensibilities  so  acute  that  she  fainted  when  Vergil 
read  his  eulogy  of  Marcellus  in  her  presence,  was 
not  much  to  his  liking.  It  is  more  probable,  how- 
ever, that  resistance  was  useless.  Where  the  em- 
peror decreed,  she  had  only  to  obey.  Once,  indeed, 
she  had  shown  her  loyalty  and  her  strength  by  re- 
fusing a  like  proposal  in  her  own  case,  but  the  mar- 

183 


SOME   FAMOUS   WOMEN 

riage  of  Julia  was  vital  as  a  matter  of  State,  and  it 
is  not  likely  that  Augustus  would  have  sacrificed  a 
thing  upon  which  he  had  set  his  heart,  to  the  hap- 
piness of  any  woman  whatever.  Perhaps,  too,  she 
shared  the  common  belief  that  private  inclination 
must  never  stand  in  the  way  of  public  benefit.  It 
was  the  noblesse  oblige  of  good  rulers. 

Octavia  no  doubt  had  her  little  foibles,  though  it 
is  not  at  all  certain  that  this  step  was  due  to  one  of 
them  ;  but  she  did  not  forget  the  duties  of  her  posi- 
tion. She  had  wide  fame  as  a  loyal,  charitable,  self- 
sacrificing,  and  virtuous  woman.  In  the  spirit  of 
the  new  age,  she  patronized  talent,  and  gave  a  pub- 
lic library  to  the  portico  which  Augustus  had  built 
in  her  honor,  filling  it  with  valuable  paintings  of 
classical  subjects.  In  the  failure  of  her  hopes  and 
the  loss  of  her  illusions,  she  still  devoted  herself  to 
the  children  of  Antony  as  well  as  her  own,  and  in- 
terested herself  in  arranging  suitable  marriages  for 
them.  But  these  things  failed  to  bring  consolation 
to  a  bruised  heart,  or  serenity  in  the  troubles  that 
had  fallen  upon  her.  She  shut  herself  from  the 
world  after  her  last  humiliations,  and  died  of  her 
griefs  at  fifty-four,  revered  and  idolized  by  the 
Roman  people,  who  resented  her  wrongs  as  much  as 
they  pitied  her  sufferings.  But  the  son  she  never 
ceased  to  mourn  had  been  in  his  tomb  many  a  year, 
and  the  fickle  husband  who  deserted  her  had  ended 

his  career  in  disgrace  long  before.     She  did  not  live 

<**^~ 
184 


, 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

to  see  the  downfall  of  Julia,  the  death  of  her  august 
brother,  or  the  final  triumph  of  Livia.  She  was 
spared,  too,  the  misfortunes  that  befell  some  of  the 
children  of  her  love  and  care. 

The  details  of  Octavia's  life  are  few  and  meager. 
Fate  gave  her  a  prominent  part  to  play  on  the 
world's  stage,  and  she  played  it  well,  but  with  an 
evident  longing  to  fall  back  upon  her  affections. 
She  was  never  a  woman  of  initiative,  but  she  was 
clearly  one  of  moral  force,  framed  to  temper  the 
friction  of  more  powerful  individualities,  but  to  be 
herself  crushed  in  their  collisions.  She  stands  for 
the  purest  and  most  gracious  type  of  Roman  woman- 
hood. Many  were  stronger,  many  were  more  bril- 
liant, but  few  left  a  memory  so  fragrant  or  so  sweet. 

^/ 

III 

THERE  was  another  woman  in  the  household  of 
Augustus,  who  represented  the  new  age  on  its  worst 
and  most  dangerous  side.  In  Julia  we  have  the 
woman  who  lived  to  amuse  herself,  and  left  a  name 
which  has  become  a  synonym  for  the  appalling  cor- 
ruption of  Roman  society.  No  one  was  placed  so 
high,  no  one  fell  so  low;  and  no  one  has  been  so 
often  quoted  to  "point  a  moral  or  adorn  a  tale." 
But  it  has  often  been  the  wrong  moral  and  the 
wrong  tale.  Bred  austerely  for  a  throne,  versed  in 
all  the  culture  of  her  time,  this  brilliant,  haughty, 

185 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN 

impetuous  daughter  of  the  emperor  led  the  fast  set 
at  Rome  for  a  few  years,  dazzled  the  world  with  her 
wit  and  her  toilets,  shocked  it  with  her  escapades, 
only  to  sink  at  last  from  her  lofty  pedestal  to  untold 
depths  of  infamy  and  a  living  tomb. 

Given,  a  woman  with  the  sensual,  dominating 
inheritance  of  the  Caesars  and  the  pride  of  a  new 
race  that  knows  no  law  but  its  own  will,  without  the 
pride  of  character  which  serves  always  as  a  balance- 
wheel  to  the  passions;  imagine  her  a  widow  at  sev- 
enteen, and  married  again,  with  no  choice,  to  a  plain 
but  distinguished  soldier,  nearly  thrice  her  age, 
whose  lack  of  patrician  birth  humiliated  her,  and 
whose  bourgeois  habits  were  not  to  her  liking;  sur- 
round her  with  idle  and  conscienceless  men  who 
make  love  a  pursuit  and  the  arts  of  flattery  a  study 
— and  we  have  already  the  elements  of  a  tragedy. 
This  hard-headed  husband  wearied  her;  his  ways 
were  foreign  to  her;  his  world  of  interest  was  not 
hers.  ,  Even  the  public  spirit  which  led  him  to  give 
so  many  fine  temples  and  works  of  art  to  the  city 
that  honored  him  annoyed  her.  She  had  the  tastes 
of  a  dilettante,  but  she  believed  firmly  in  the  divine 
right  of  emperors  and  emperors'  daughters  to  com- 
mand all  things  for  themselves. 

Nor  did  this  petted  child  like  any  better  the  pro- 
vincial notions  of  her  old-fashioned  father.  It  did 
not  suit  her  to  sew  and  spin  with  her  stepmother, 
whose  staid  decorum  irritated  her.  She  belonged 

1 86 


OF   IMPERIAL   ROME 

to  the  pleasure-loving  set  of  an  age  in  which  luxury 
was  uppermost  and  vice  was  a  fine  art.  Fatal  hour 
in  any  age  when  fashion  laughs  at  morals  and 
glories  in  the  cachet  of  would-be  elegant  sin !  "  If 
my  father  forgets  that  he  is  Caesar,  I  who  am  his 
daughter  have  the  right  to  remember  it,"  said  Julia, 
by  way  of  comment  on  his  democratic  ways/  One 
day  at  the  theater  he  noticed  the  contrast  between 
the  dignified  Livia,  simply  attired,  but  surrounded" 
by  grave  statesmen  and  men  of  distinction,  and  the 
gaily  dressed  Julia  with  her  train  of  gilded,  dissolute 
youth.  After  his  usual  fashion  of  writing  little 
notes  when  he  had  anything  to  say,  he  sent  the  lat- 
ter a  line  of  reproof.  "  Do  not  blame  my  young 
friends,"  was  her  ready  answer;  "they  will  grow 
old  with  me."  On  another  occasion,  after  he  had 
found  fault  with  her  showy  appearance,  she  pre- 
sented herself  the  next  day  in  a  plain  and  modest 
costume.  To  his  compliment  on  the  becoming 
change,  she  replied :  "  To-day  I  am  dressed  for  my 
father;  yesterday  it  was  for  my  husband."  The 
subtle  satire  in  this  remark  was  only  apparent  to 
those  who  knew  that  she  dressed  for  all  the  world 
rather  than  for  either. 

She  was  gifted,  witty,  and  cultured,  we  are  told ; 
but  to  be  lettered  in  the  age  of  the  Caesars  did  not 
necessarily  mean  learning  or  serious  tastes.  One 
must  dabble  a  little  in  philosophy,  read  the  Hel- 
lenic poets,  patronize  famous  Roman  writers,  and  be 

187 


SOME    FAMOUS   WOMEN 

able  to  talk  of  the  Greek  artists  who  were  designing 
temples  and  flooding  the  imperial  city  with  sculp- 
ture of  various  grades.  It  was  even  possible  to 
have  a  long-haired  philosopher  to  dress  the  intellect, 
as  the  maid  dressed  the  person — the  one  a  slave 
like  the  other.  But  all  this  might  end  in  little  more 
than  the  trifling  of  the  dilettante,  and  was  quite 
consistent  with  very  bad  morals — as  it  has  always 
been  and  is  to-day.  To  discourse  of  Ovid's  "  Art 
of  Love  "  was  agreeable  enough,  and  not  mentally 
exacting.  To  be  sure,  the  poet  did  not  bring  his 
admirers  into  very  respectable  society ;  indeed,  we 
should  think  it  not  only  altogether  vulgar,  but  alto- 
gether base.  But  it  appealed  to  the  tastes  of  these 
spoiled  darlings  of  fortune  who  had  nothing  else  to 
do  but  amuse  themselves — it  did  not  matter  how,  so 
long  as  due  regard  was  paid  to  the  so-called  elegan- 
cies. From  love,  as  the  Romans  understood  it,  to 
unlimited  license  was  but  a  step.  They  did  not 
live  in  the  "  beyond  "  of  refined  sentiment.  They 
mixed  very  little  intellect  or  imagination  with  their 
passions,  though  they  put  a  certain  art  into  the 
stimulants  of  their  sensations.  When  Catullus 
wished  to  add  a  last  touch  of  seriousness  to  what  he 
called  his  emotions,  he  said  that  he  loved  Lesbia  "  not 
merely  as  men  commonly  loved  a  mistress,  but  as  a 
father  loves  his  sons  and  his  sons-in-law."  There 
was  little  romance  in  this  epicurean  life,  in  spite  of 
a  great  deal  of  simple  family  affection  outside  of  it, 

1 88 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

which  these  perfumed  sybarites  looked  upon  as  bour- 
geois.^ Splendor  and  not  too  decorous  pleasure  were 
all-sufficient.  Anything  else  they  would  have 
laughed  at  as  moonshine.  "  When  Queen  Money 
gave  a  dowry,"  said  Horace,  with  his  inimitable 
satire,  "  she  gave  beauty,  nobility,  friends,  and  fi- 
delity." With  the  exception  of  Horace  and  Vergil, 
who  had  already  grown  too  moral  for  the  highest 
fashion,  Roman  poetry  was  incredibly  coarse  and 
demoralizing;  but  this  was  the  literary  food  of  the 
reckless  and  dashing  group  that  gravitated  from 
the  palace  on  the  Palatine  to  Baiae,  the  Newport  of 
the  Roman  world,  rushing  from  one  novelty  to  an- 
other, from  one  excess  to  a  deeper  and  more  highly 
spiced  one,  until  its  rapid  course  was  run. 

Of  this  society  Julia  was  the  center,  the  life,  and 
the  inspiration.  The  days  were  past  when  the  stern 
father  put  a  man  of  high  lineage  peremptorily  in  his 
place  for  presuming  to  address  her  in  the  beautiful 
city  by  the  sea.  The  complaisant  husband,  ab- 
sorbed in  affairs,  no  doubt  thought  it  best  to  let  her 
go  her  own  way,  but  he  died  possibly  unsuspecting. 
Again  the  still  youthful  widow  was  married  in  the 
interest  of  the  State  and  of  Livia — to  Livia's  son. 
The  brooding,  gloomy  student  was  equally  far  from 
filling  the  heart  of  the  graceful  woman  who  was 
overflowing  with  the  joy  of  life,  and  intoxicated  with 
a  sense  of  power  that  knows  no  law.  Livia  may 
have  been  faulty  enough,  but  she  was  above  the 

189 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN 

degradation  of  the  senses.  In  Julia  the  virtues  of 
the  Roman  matron  seem  to  have  been  lost.  When 
her  conduct  came  to  the  knowledge  of  her  inflexible 
father,  he  was  as  bitter  as  he  had  been  tender.  Her 
maid  hung  herself,  and  Augustus  only  said  :  "  I  would 
rather  be  the  father  of  Phoebe  than  of  Julia."  Of 
the  youth  entangled  with  her,  some  were  exiled  and 
some  took  themselves  out  of  a  world  that  was  no 
longer  possible  for  them.  Among  the  latter  was  the 
clever,  fascinating,  but  dissolute  son  of  Antony, 
who  had  been  carefully  reared  by  Octavia  and  be- 
friended by  the  emperor,  only  to  repay  their  kind- 
r  ness  by  striking  both  in  the  tenderest  point.  But 
N,  Julia,  the  beautiful,  brilliant,  flattered  queen  of  so- 
ciety, was  sent  away  from  all  her  pleasures,  her 
luxuries,  her  gay  companions,  her  matchless  posi- 
tion, to  languish  for  fifteen  years  in  a  desolate  exile, 
with  no  friend  but  the  mother  who  shared  with  her 
the  bare  necessaries  of  a  squalid  existence.  No 
wine,  no  luxury,  no  fine  clothes,  no  men-servants 
without  special  restrictions  and  surveillance.  A 
rock  for  a  home,  the  sea  and  the  sky  for  compan- 
ions, and  not  even  hope  for  consolation.  And  she 
was  little  past  thirty-five !  Once  she  was  removed 
to  a  stronghold  of  Calabria,  with  a  larger  guard  and 
no  added  comforts,  but  a  little  less  severity.  Many 
times  the  Roman  people,  who  had  loved  her  buoy- 
ant spirit  and  winning  personality,  begged  her  inex- 
orable father  to  forgive  her.  "  I  wish  you  all  had 

190 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

such  daughters  and  such  wives,"  was  his  only  reply. 
She  died  shortly  after  her  father,  to  lie,  unsung  and 
forgotten,  far  from  her  kindred  in  an  unknown 
grave.  Not  a  word  is  left  to  tell  us  the  details  of 
that  long  tragedy.  Her  daughter  Julia  inherited 
her  vices  and  suffered  a  like  fate. 


IV 

IT  is  needless  to  recall  here  the  notorious  women 
who  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Julia,  and  added  to 
all  her  sins  a  cruelty  which  she  had  not.  The  world 
is  familiar  enough  with  the  crimes  of  Messalina,  the 
second  Agrippina,  Poppaea,  and  others  whose  names 
have  become  a  by-word  and  a  reproach  to  woman- 
hood. Men,  and  sometimes  women,  gravely  tell  us 
that  these  moral  monsters  are  a  measure  of  Roman 
standards,  and  a  logical  result  of  the  culture  of  the 
feminine  intellect.  That  two  things  exist  at  the 
same  time  does  not  prove  that  one  is  the  result  of 
the  other.  The  facts  in^  this  case,  indeed,  prove 
quite  the  contrary.  It  would  be  idle  to  say  that 
the  weaker  half  of  the  human  family  hold  a  mo- 
nopoly of  the  virtues,  or  that  it  is  in  the  nature 
of  things  for  them  to  pass  unscathed  through  the 
fiery  ordeal  of  a  corrupt  age  whose  supreme  end 
lies  in  pleasures  of  sense.  -\  But  even  in  Rome  at  its 
worst  there  was  a  great  deal  of  pure  family  life, 
and  its  conservation  rested  with  women.  I  have 

191 


SOME    FAMOUS   WOMEN 

quoted  elsewhere  from  the  private  letters  of  dis- 
tinguished Romans  who  have  given  us  pleasant 
glimpses  of  refined,  accomplished,  and  learned  wo- 
men, as  free  from  the  taint  of  moral  laxity  as  our 
own  ;  and  this  when  men  made  no  claims  to  morality 
themselves.  To  the  great  body  of  Roman  women 
a  spotless  virtue  was  among  their  most  cherished 
traditions.")  So  far  from  finding  their  increased  in- 
telligence a  cause  of  the  decline  in  morals,  it  is  a 
fact  that  those  of  the  highest  character  and  ability 
constantly  suffered  indignity  and  wrong,  because 
their  presence  was  a  restraint  upon  their  unscrupu- 
lous masters.  Long  domination  had  fostered  the 
egotism  of  men  to  such  an  extent  that  they  could 
not  brook  opposition  of  any  sort,  and  it  was  the 
ignorant  and  flexible  who  bent  the  most  easily  to 
their  will,  even  when  it  led  them  to  the  last  ex- 
treme of  moral  subservience.  Only  a  fearless  cour- 
age and  a  strong  conviction  could  venture  to  take 
high  ground  against  the  fashionable  sins  of  men  in 
power.  It  is  always  more  or  less  true  that  when  a 
dominant  class  lowers  its  moral  standards,  it  likes  to 
ostracize  those  who  even  tacitly  reflect  upon  it. 

Examples  of  this  in  Roman  life  are  so  numerous 
that  two  thousand  years  have  not  sufficed  to  hide 
them  all.  v  Of  women  in  high  places  who  suffered 
death  or  banishment  for  their  virtues,  the  list  is  a 
long  one.  Caligula  decreed  the  same  honors  to  his 
grandmother,  the  pure  and  high-minded  Antonia, 

192 


OF   IMPERIAL   ROME 

which  had  been  given  to  Livia.  But  when  this  digni- 
fied matron,  worthy  daughter  of  the  gentle  Octavia, 
presumed  to  reprove  him  for  his  vices,  he  starved 
her  to  death.  Vitellius  banished  his  mother,  Sex- 
tilia,  a  woman  of  admirable  character,  because  she 
wept  at  his  elevation  to  the  throne.  This  was  a  re- 
proach which  he  could  not  brook,  and,  failing  to 
break  her  heart  by  his  cruelties,  he  took  her  life,  or 
made  it  so  intolerable  that  she  was  forced  to  end  it 
herself.  It  was  impossible  for  a  good  woman  to  stay 
in  the  palace,  and  the  Empress  Galeria  begged  per- 
mission to  retire  to  a  modest  dwelling  on  the  Aven- 
tine.  Domitian  ordered  a  vestal,  charged  with 
scandalous  acts  which  were  denied  and  not  proved, 
to  be  buried  alive ;  but  he  consistently  marked  vir- 
tue for  persecution,  hesitated  at  no  crime,  and  de- 
clared a  woman  to  be  "  a  natural  slave,  with  man  for 
her  divinely  appointed  master."  Carrying  this  to 
its  logical  conclusion,  he  made  the  Palatine  unsafe 
for  any  woman.  That  the  great  heart  of  Roman 
womanhood  was  on  the  side  of  loyalty  and  virtue, 
and  looked  upon  conjugal  infidelity  as  a  sin  to  be 
frowned  upon  even  in  men,  is  shown  by  their  atti- 
tude toward  Nero  when  he  sent  away  his  young, 
lovely,  and  innocent  wife,  Octavia,  to  marry  the 
most  dissolute  woman  of  the  time.  Many  men 
remonstrated,  and  women  rose  in  a  body  to  demand 
her  return'f ' .  For  the  moment  he  thought  it  best  to 
yield  to  the  popular  clamor,  but  he  soon  invented  a 

13  193 


SOME    FAMOUS    WOMEN 

pretext  to  send  her  to  the  long  silence  from  which 
there  is  no  return.  Yet  she  was  beautiful,  of  cloud- 
less fame,  and  had  lived  hardly  twenty  years! 
Roman  history  is  full  of  instances  of  moral  heroism 
on  the  part  of  women,  that  had  no  counterpart 
among  men,  and  of  feminine  virtue  held  at  the  ex- 
pense of  life.  Servilia,  the  youthful  daughter  of 
Soranus,  took  upon  herself  a  fault  for  which  it  was 
sought  to  compass  her  father's  death,  and  not  being 
able  to  save  him,  died  with  him.  Women  in  great 
numbers  retired  in  sad  dignity  from  a  society  whose 
current  of  vice  they  were  powerless  to  change.  A 
stately  and  pathetic  figure  is  Pomponia  Graecina, 
who  wore  mourning  for  forty  years,  and  never  smiled 
after  her  friend  Julia,  the  daughter  of  Drusus,  was 
murdered  by  Messalina.  >i  It  was  a  pitiless  world  in 
which  neither  virtue  nor  life  was  safe,  but  it  had  its 
heroines,  and  they  were  not  few. 

Nor  can  the  number  of  divorces  be  placed  to  the 
account  of  women.  When  a  Julius  Caesar  takes  his 
tenderly  loved  daughter  from  her  husband  and  mar- 
ries her  to  another  man  in  the  interest  of  his  own 
ambitions ;  when  an  Augustus  makes  laws  against 
immorality,  yet  divorces  an  innocent  wife  who  objects 
to  his  own  infidelities,  and  puts  in  her  place  a  beau- 
tiful woman  of  unsullied  fame,  whom  he  has  taken 
from  a  worthy  man ;  when  both  of  these  rulers  of 
the  world  compel  good  citizens  to  divorce  the  con- 
sorts they  possibly  love,  in  order  to  dispose  of  one 

194 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

or  the  other  for  personal  ends  or  the  good  of  the 
State — it  is  hardly  worth  while  to  hold  helpless 
women  responsible  for  conditions  made  and  enforced 
by  men  in  power,  who  are  called  wise1  and  think 
themselves  passably  goodT)  The  most  that  can  be 
said  is  that  women  of  knowledge  and  character  are 
less  likely  to  bear  wrong  and  abuse  silently,  but 
they  are  more  likely  to  uphold  the  dignity  of  the 
family  and  to  ignore  the  petty  vanities  and  jealousies 
which  are  among  the  most  prolific  causes  of  divorce. 
A  cultivated  intellect  does  not  necessarily  imply 
good  morals,  but,  other  things  being  equal,  an  edu- 
cated woman  is  less  easily  led  into  wrong,  as  she  has 
more  resources  and  is  better  fitted  to  stand  on  her 
own  feet ;  unfortunately,  this  is  precisely  what  her 
critics  in  the  past  have  not  wished  her  to  do. 
\  With  so  many  conspicuous  examples  in  high 
places,  it  is  hardly  strange  that  divorces  became 
deplorably  common.  "  Does  anybody  blush  at  a 
divorce,"  says  one,  "  since  illustrious  and  noble 
women  compute  their  years,  not  by  the  number  of 
consuls,  but  by  the  number  of  husbands  they  have 
had  ?  "  We  hear  of  a  woman  who  was  the  twenty- 
first  wife  of  her  twenty-third  husband.  The  pre- 
texts were  often  slight.  It  was  said  of  Maecenas 
that  he  had  been  divorced  a  thousand  times,  though 
he  had  but  one  wife,  as  he  loved  her  and  always 
married  her  over  again.  The  woman  who  had  been 
but  once  married  was  honored  as  a  univira\  She 

195 


SOME    FAMOUS   WOMEN 

was  too  often,  however,  like  a  goddess  worshiped 
from  afar  by  men  who  found  both  interest  and 
pleasure  in  the  number  of  their  wives.  Much  of  the 
trouble  was  due  to  the  fortune-hunters,  who  did  not 
scruple  to  use  any  means  to  get  rid  of  a  wife  and 
retain  her  dowry,  at  the  expense  of  her  fair  name. 
Even  good  women  were  so  wholly  at  the  mercy  of 
false  charges  that  Antoninus  made  a  law  that  no 
man  could  bring  suit  against  his  wife  for  immorality 
unless  he  could  prove  his  own  fidelity.  We  know 
that  wise  and  virtuous  women  were  often  forced  to 
seclude  themselves  from  the  aggressions  of  wicked 
men  against  whose  machinations  they  were  unable 
to  find  protection. 

There  was  one  law,  however,  which  might  be 
considered  to  advantage  by  some  of  our  own  legis- 
lators. It  had  been  decreed  that  no  one  should 
marry  sooner  than  six  months  after  a  divorce. 
Augustus  extended  the  time  to  eighteen  months. 
We  talk  much  and  with  a  fine  consciousness  of  su- 
perior virtue  about  the  chaotic  state  of  Roman  mar- 
riages. What  will  our  fortieth-century  moralist  who 
reads  present  history,  as  photographed  from  day  to 
day  in  the  blazing  journals,  say  of  the  decadence  of 
a  civilization  in  which  people  may  marry  two  hours 
after  divorce,  or  find  themselves  some  fine  morning 
released  from  their  marriage  bonds  without  knowing 
it?  And  we  are  an  eminently  moral  people. 

On  the  influence  of  the  Roman  women  let  the 
196 


OF   IMPERIAL   ROME 

Romans  speak  for  themselves.  It  was  proposed  in 
the  Senate  that  men  should  not  be  permitted  to  take 
their  wives  into  the  provinces,  as  they  had  too  much 
power  with  the  soldiers,  interfered  in  settling  busi- 
ness affairs,  and  made  another  center  of  government 
— indeed,  they  sometimes  "  presided  at  the  drill  of 
cohorts  and  the  evolutions  of  the  legions,"  besides 
dividing  the  homage.)  The  majority  of  the  senators 
objected  to  this  bill,  and  pronounced  its  author  "  no 
fit  censor."  An  able  and  eloquent  man,  in  reply  to 
it,  said  that "  much  of  the  sternness  of  antiquity  had 
been  changed  into  a  better  and  more  genial  system." 
A  few  concessions  had  been  made  to  the  wants  of 
women,  but  "  in  other  respects  man  and  wife  share 
alike."  There  might  be  some  scheming  women, 
but  were  the  magistrates  free  from  various  unworthy 
passions,  and  was  this  a  reason  why  none  should  be 
sent  to  the  provinces?  If  husbands  were  sometimes 
corrupted  by  their  wives,  were  single  men  any 
better?  "It  is  idle  to  shelter  our  own  weakness 
under  other  names ;  for  it  is  the  husband's  fault  if 
the  wife  transgresses  propriety."  This  wise  orator 
was  sustained  by  eminent  men  who  gave  their  own 
fortunate  experiences,  and  the  bill  was  lost.  Such 
a  tribute  to  the  helpfulness  and  strong  character  of 
the  Roman  woman  may  be  commended  to  a  few  of 
our  enlightened  thinkers  who,  curiously  enough,  use 
the  low  standards  of  men  who  never  pretended  to 
be  moral,  and  the  frailties  of  dependent  women  who 

197 


SOME    FAMOUS   WOMEN 

were  not  permitted  to  be  so,  or  of  a  class  that  has 
always  appealed  to  the  weaknesses  of  men  since  the 
beginning  of  the  world,  to  prove  the  degeneracy  of 
society  under  the  influence  of  feminine  intelligence! 
It  was  never  the  woman  of  strong  intellectual  fiber 
and  serious  interests  that  Rome  had  to  fear.  It 
was  another  class,  that  did  not,  in  any  sense,  repre- 
sent her  either  in  intelligence  or  character. 


THE  wicked  side  of  the  Roman  woman — and  this 
was  sometimes  very  wicked  indeed — has  been  suffi- 
ciently emphasized.  It  is  more  agreeable  and  per- 
haps more  profitable  to  consider  her  better  side. 
Her  talent  was  essentially  administrative,  and  we 
find  many  illustrations  of  it  among  those  who  were 
conspicuous  in  public  life.  There  were  strong  and 
wise  women  who  had  great  power ;  as  a  rule,  it  was 
held  wisely.  Many  of  them,  indeed  most  of  them, 
brought  moral  questions  to  bear  upon  State  prob- 
lems, with  a  keen  discriminating  insight  into  condi- 
tions that  troubled  the  hearts  of  wise  men.  Their 
number  was  small,  as  no  woman  below  the  rank  of 
an  empress  was  eligible  to  the  smallest  position  of 
influence,  aside  from  the  religious  offices,  which  were 
largely  perfunctory ;  but  it  was  sufficient  to  show  a 
quality  of  womanhood  that  was  not  only  strong,  but 
intrinsically  fine  and  noble. 

198 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

Of  these,  as  we  have  seen,  the  most  striking  rep- 
resentative was  Livia.  Among  those  who  followed 
more  or  less  in  her  footsteps  was  Plotina,  the  able 
and  accomplished  wife  of  Trajan.  Trained  in  the 
philosophy  of  the  Stoics,  her  head  was  turned  neither 
by  prosperity  nor  misfortune.  She  entered  the 
palace,  on  her  husband's  elevation  to  the  throne, 
with  serene  dignity,  and  said  that  she  could  leave  it 
with  equal  calmness.  With  less  ambition  than  the 
first  empress,  she  had  a  finer  moral  sense,  also  the 
gravity  and  firmness  of  a  matron  of  the  old  school. 
She  loved  truth  and  justice  better  than  the  pageantry 
of  courts,  and  ignored  the  claims  of  an  artificial  so- 
ciety. A  woman  of  brilliant  intellect,  noble  charac- 
ter, and  exalted  aims,  she  led  a  simple  life  in  the  midst 
of  luxury,  and  used  her  power  not  only  to  raise  the 
tone  of  morals  and  to  foster  a  taste  for  letters,  but 
to  expose  political  corruptions,  suppress  abuses,  di- 
minish unjust  taxes,  and  promote  financial  reforms. 
It  was  through  her  influence  that  Hadrian  was 
adopted,  a  favor  which  he  recognized  by  extending 
her  authority  in  his  reign,  and  writing  hymns  in  her 
praise^  The  trace  of  asceticism  in  her  character 
and  manners  did  not  please  the  idlers  who  liked  to 
bask  in  the  sunshine  of  a  gay  and  luxurious  court. 
She  was  censured  and  talked  about,  with  little 
enough  reason  as  it  seems,  as  no  records  have  left  a 
shadow  on  her  reputation.  Her  fault,  in  the  eyes 
of  bad  men,  lay  in  her  moral  force.  To  frown  upon 

199 


SOME    FAMOUS   WOMEN 

vice,  to  oppose  corruption  in  high  places,  was  an 
unwarranted  interference  with  their  natural  rights. 
But  good  men  sustained  her.  At  her  death  she  was 
placed  in  the  ranks  of  the  gods  and  honored  with  a 
temple  dedicated  to  the  "  Mother  of  the  People." 

A  more  conspicuous  example  of  the  ability  of  the 
women  who  figured  in  the  public  life  of  Rome  is 
found  in  Julia  Domna,  the  Syrian  wife  of  Septimius 
Severus,  who  is  said  to  have  owed  his  success  to  her 
wise  counsels.  She  was  not  simply  an  ambitious 
woman  who  schemed  for  place  and  power.  To  a 
genius  for  diplomacy  she  added  the  fascinations  of 
beauty,  wit,  and  imagination.  She  had  a  knowledge 
of  history,  philosophy,  geometry,  and  the  sciences 
of  her  time,  was  a  patron  of  art,  and  made  her  court 
a  center  of  all  that  was  left  of  literature  and  culture 
in  an  age  of  decadence.  Her  husband  evidently  did 
not  object  to  a  learned  woman,  as  he  had  a  special 
admiration  for  Arria  "  because  she  read  Plato." 
Then  this  clever  wife — who  was  called  "  Julia  the 
philosopher,"  surrounded  herself  with  savants,  and 
loved  to  discuss  great  subjects — put  her  versatile 
intellect  to  his  service  and  advancement.  Her  youth 
was  not  free  from  rumors  of  follies,  but  no  woman 
of  note  escaped  these,  even  if  she  were  pure  as 
Diana.  Her  father  was  a  "  priest  of  the  Sun,"  and 
she  was  always  a  student,  with  a  tendency  toward 
Oriental  mysticism.  She  ruled  wisely  and  made 
the  fortune  of  her  family.  In  her  last  years  she 

200 


OF    IMPERIAL   ROME 

sought  refuge  from  many  sorrows  in  the  resources 
of  her  intellect,  but  these  failed  to  bring  her  hap- 
piness. The  wicked  Caracalla,  who  did  not  profit 
by  his  mother's  wisdom,  killed  his  brother  in  her 
arms,  and  finally  broke  her  heart. 

Her  sister,  Julia  Maesa,  shared  her  abilities,  and, 
with  the  aid  of  her  daughters,  secured  the  throne 
for  her  grandson.  She  was  no  doubt  ambitious,  but 
was  known  as  wise,  just,  and  moderate.  This 
family,  which  ruled  Rome  for  many  years,  was  a  re- 
markable one,  but  its  credit  was  sustained  mainly  by 
its  women.  One  of  the  daughters  of  Julia  Maesa 
was  Soaemias,  who  was  the  first  woman  to  take  her 
place  in  the  Senate  and  attach  her  name  to  legisla- 
tive decrees.  She  also  presided  over  the  Little 
Senate,  a  sort  of  "  woman's  club,"  which  regulated 
morals,  dress,  etiquette,  and  other  matters  pertain- 
ing to  her  sex.  It  was  accused  of  gossip  and  scan- 
dal; but  as  this  accusation  has  been  made  against 
every  association  of  women,  from  the  coterie  of 
Sappho  to  the  modern  sewing-society  and  the  last 
luncheon  club,  it  cannot  be  taken  too  seriously. 
Let  the  man  who  lounges  about  the  clubs  of  to-day, 
— as  his  Greek  and  Roman  predecessors  did  about 
the  porticos,  gymnasia,  or  baths, — and  has  never 
heard  or  repeated  any  gossip  of  his  fellow-men  and 
-women,  throw  the  first  stone. 

But  Soaemias  had  a  bad  son,  the  Heliogabulus  of 
infamous  note,  whom  she  could  not  save  or  reform, 

201 


SOME    FAMOUS   WOMEN 

and  she  was  wise  enough  to  pave  the  way  for  the 
succession  of  her  sister's  more  reputable  one,  after 
his  death.  This  sister,  Mamaea,  was  virtually 
regent  during  the  minority  of  Alexander  Severus, 
whose  purity  of  character  and  conduct  she  guarded 
with  the  greatest  care.  She  tried  to  apply  the  moral 
ideals  of  womanhood  to  the  men  of  the  period,  and 
found  the  task  a  difficult  and  thankless  one.  With- 
out assuming  the  trappings  of  power,  she  adminis- 
tered the  affairs  of  the  empire  with  wisdom  and 
judgment.  An  able,  humane,  and  thoughtful  wo- 
man of  conservative  tendencies  and  limited  am- 
bition for  herself,  she  declined  to  sit  in  the  Senate, 
but  chose  a  body  of  just  and  learned  counselors  to 
decide  upon  public  questions,  while  she  discussed 
Christianity  with  her  friend  Origen,  founded  a 
school  for  the  free  education  of  orphans,  gave  her 
son  a  serious  training  for  his  future  responsibilities, 
and  worked  for  the  moral  betterment  of  a  world 
that  did  not  wish  to  be  bettered  in  that  way.  Her 
standards  were  too  high,  and  she  reformed  too 
much  for  people  who  found  license  and  corruption 
more  to  their  interest  and  liking.  The  Senate  was 
jealous  of  her  wise  and  just  counselors,  who  could 
not  be  used  as  tools  for  unscrupulous  ends.  Impa- 
tient, at  last,  of  their  interference,  and  incensed  at  a 
woman  who  wished  a  moral  government,  it  passed 
a  law  excluding  women  from  its  ranks  and  "  devot- 
ing to  the  infernal  gods  the  head  of  the  wretch  by 
whom  this  decree  should  be  violated."  With  singu- 

202 


OF    IMPERIAL    ROME 

lar  consistency,  however,  it  voted  her  an  apotheosis 
after  ridding  itself  of  the  restraining  influence  of  her 
virtues  by  practically  sending  her  to  a  violent  death. 


VI 

THESE  few  instances,  gathered  from  many  that 
are  more  or  less  familiar  to  the  student  of  history, 
may  serve  to  show  in  some  degree  the  influence  of 
strong  and  able  women  in  the  affairs  of  Old  Rome. 
They  show,  also,  the  intellectual  as  well  as  moral 
force  of  the  best  type  of  pagan  womanhood,  which 
was  formed  after  classic  ideals  of  an  heroic  pattern. 
-\  There  were  still  women  of  learning  and  distinc- 
tion when  the  old  standards  had  fallen  and  society 
was  sunk  in  the  grossest  materialism.  The  last  and 
greatest  of  these  was  an  alien.  It  was  at  Tivoli,  in 
the  shadow  of  the  Sabine  Hills,  that  Zenobia,  a  cap- 
tive, and  alone  with  her  children  among  the  ruins  of 
her  past  grandeur,  solaced  herself  with  letters  and 
philosophy.  Her  teacher,  minister,  counselor,  and 
friend,  Longinus,  had  paid  the  penalty  of  his  devo- 
tion with  his  life,  and  the  world  was  poorer  by  the 
loss  of  one  of  its  immortal  thinkers.  But  he  left  an 
apt  pupil  in  a  woman  who  had  treasured  his  wis- 
dom and  profited  by  his  marvelous  knowledge.  An 
Amazon  in  war,  empress,  linguist,  Platonist,  with 
the  grasp  of  a  statesman  and  the  insight  of  a  seer, 
this  gifted,  eloquent,  and  versatile  woman  of  flash- 
ing dark  eyes,  winning  manners,  and  Oriental 

203 


SOME  FAMOUS  WOMEN  OF  ROME 

beauty,  who  graced  a  triumph  like  a  goddess  and 
met  misfortune  like  a  philosopher,  is  a  shining  ex- 
ample of  the  dignity  and  greatness  of  a  type  that 
was  passing.  "  Who  has  ever  shown  more  pru- 
dence in  council,  more  firmness  in  her  undertakings, 
more  authority  over  her  soldiers,  more  discernment 
in  her  conduct?"  said  her  arch-enemy  Aurelian, 
who  bowed  to  her  talents,  felt  her  fascinations,  but 
made  a  spectacle  of  her  sorrow  and  humiliation  to 
add  a  jewel  to  his  crown. 

It  is  idle  to  depreciate  the  qualities  of  the  pagan 
women.  Under  all  their  disabilities,  which  were 
many,  those  whose  position  gave  them  a  certain 
freedom  of  movement  often  attained  great  heights 
through  their  gifts  of  character  and  intellect.  There 
were  great  wives,  great  mothers,  great  administra- 
tors, great  rulers,  great  writers  among  the  more 
sensitive  races,  and  great  women,  which  means  a 
symmetry  of  mind,  heart,  and  intellect  in  large  pro- 
portions. But  the  ages  in  which  they  lived  were 
masculine  ones — masculine  in  their  cruelties  and 
their  vices,  as  well  as  in  their  force  and  their 
theories  of  virtue.  Women  did  not  escape  the  con- 
tagion, and  when  they  plunged  into  abysses  of  cor- 
ruption, it  was  with  the  abandon  of  a  passionate 
temperament.  Still,  it  was  the  voices  of  those  who 
were  too  strong  and  too  intelligent  to  be  blindly  led 
that  were  first  raised  in  a  moral  protest,  the  echo 
of  which  has  not  yet  died  away. 

204 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND  THE 
FIRST    CONVENT 


MARCELLA,    PAULA,    AND   THE 

FIRST    CONVENT 

V* 

•  Woman's  Need  of  a  Faith    • 
•    Rome  in  its  Decadence    • 

•  The  Reaction  of  Roman  Women    • 

•    Marcella   .    The  Church  of  the  Household    • 

•  Asella    •    Fabiola    •    Paula    • 
Eustochium    •    Blsesilla    •    St.  Jerome    .    Melania 

•  The  Convent  at  Bethlehem    . 

•  Translation  of  the  Latin  Vulgate    • 

•    Hebrew  Studies    •    Death  of  Paula    • 

•  Tragical  Fate  of  Marcella    • 

.    Revolution  in  Roman  Society    • 

•    Spread  of  Convents    •    Christian  Ideals    • 

•    Value  of  Able  Women  in  the  Early  Church    • 

•  St.  Chrysostom    •    Olympias    • 
Intellectual  Decline  of  Women  in  the  Dark  Ages 

•  Influence  of  the  Renaissance    • 

.    Condition  Tempered  by  Chivalry    . 
.    Elevated  by  the  Renaissance   . 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND  THE 
FIRST  CONVENT 


I 


HE  majority  of  men,  and  especially 
of  women,  whose  imagination  is 
double,  cannot  live  without  a  faith," 
said  the  Abbe  Galiani,  "  and  those 
who  can,  sustain  the  effort  only  in 
the  greatest  force  and  youth  of  the  soul."  How  far 
this  may  be  true  it  is  needless  to  discuss  here,  but 
it  is  certain  enough  that  women  have  been  the 
strongest  agents  in  the  religious  movements  of  the 
world.  A  tender  heart  may  go  with  a  skeptical 
mind,  but  the  fine  type  of  womanhood,  in  which 
reason  is  tempered  with  love  and  imagination,  in- 
evitably turns  to  some  faith  for  support  in  seasons  of 
moral  decadence  as  in  moments  of  sorrow  and  de- 
spair. This  has  never  had  a  more  striking  illustra- 
tion than  in  the  reaction  of  a  large  class  of  Roman 

207 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

women  from  the  vices,  follies,  and  debasing  pleasures 
of  a  civilization  falling  into  ruin,  toward  an  extreme 
asceticism.  At  this  moment  in  its  history  the 
golden  age  of  Rome  was  long  past,  and  the  world 
was  to  wait  more  than  a  thousand  years  for  another 
brilliant  flowering  of  the  human  intellect  on  the 
same  soil.  But  glory  of  a  different  sort  set  its  seal 
upon  the  women  of  the  darkening  ages.  To  the 
enthusiasms  of  patriotism  and  passion,  culture  and 
ambition,  succeeded  the  enthusiasms  of  religion. 

In  the  fourth  century  the  images  of  the  pagan 
gods,  white  and  silent  on  their  stone  pedestals,  still 
kept  guard  over  the  city.  Their  temples  were  com- 
paratively fresh,  but  the  gods  themselves  were  dead. 
The  seventy  thousand  statues  that  made  Rome  a 
forest  of  marbles  in  the  days  of  its  glory  had  not 
lost  their  majesty,  their  beauty,  or  their  grace ;  but 
the  spirit  which  had  made  them  alive  had  gone  with 
their  virgin  purity.  Pan  held  his  flute  as  of  old,  but 
it  was  mute.  Bacchus  still  wore  his  vine-leaves 
and  his  air  of  rollicking  mirth,  but  the  bands  of 
roistering  men  who  had  once  paid  him  homage  no 
longer  cared  for  a  god  to  preside  over  their  plain 
worship  of  the  senses.  Venus  had  taken  off  her 
divine  halo  and  gone  back  to  the  foam  of  the  sea 
whence  she  came,  leaving  only  the  smiling  face 
of  a  beautiful  woman.  The  Muses  had  ceased  to 
dance  to  the  lyre  of  Apollo,  and  the  god  of  light 
was  asleep  like  the  rest.  Men  and  women  had 

208 


THE   FIRST   CONVENT 

thrown  aside  the  thin  veil  of  idealism  with  which 
they  had  once  invested  their  sins,  and  Rome  was 
become  a  sink  of  iniquity  without  even  the  leaven 
of  the  Hellenic  imagination.  Between  a  life  of  the 
senses  and  a  life  of  the  intellect,  it  gravitated  from 
a  wild  orgy  to  a  passionless  philosophy  that  held 
its  own  pulse  and  counted  its  own  heart-beats  as  it 
drifted  curiously  and  mockingly  into  the  unknown. 
But  women  do  not  carry  easily  the  burden  of 
a  cold  skepticism,  and  philosophy  failed  to  satisfy 
them.  When  the  age  became  hopelessly  corrupt, 
and  men  scoffed  at  morals,  sending  one  another  to 
death  for  inconvenient  virtues,  they  had  been  swept 
along  with  the  current,  and  many  plunged  into  a 
life  of  the  senses  with  the  recklessness  of  an  ardent, 
virile  temperament.  But  there  was  still  a  large 
number  of  intelligent  matrons  who  preserved  the 
waning  traditions  of  an  educated  womanhood,  and 
these  revolted  at  the  hopeless  vacuum  of  a  life 
devoted  to  intrigue  and  the  tiresome  mysteries  of 
the  toilet.  The  jewels,  silks,  and  embroidered 
gauzes  of  fabulous  cost  had  no  more  charm  for  them. 
Nor  did  they  care  to  please  the  curled  and  per- 
fumed sybarites  who  gambled  or  discussed  the  last 
bit  of  scandal  in  their  pillared  halls,  fanned  by- 
slaves,  and  crying  out  at  the  crumple  of  a  rose- 
leaf.  The  Roman  women  had  been  distinguished 
for  the  stronger  qualities  of  character.  Their 
bounding  energies  had  been  shown  in  deeds  of 
x+  209 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

heroism.  They  had  to  a  large  degree  the  ardors 
of  the  imagination.  These  traits,  together  with  the 
moral  sense  that  lies  at  the  base  of  the  feminine 
nature,  though  often  submerged  for  a  time,  vindi- 
cated themselves  in  the  passionate  devotion  with 
which  so  many  turned  from  a  beautiful  but  bad 
world  toward  things  of  the  spirit. 

They  had  already  been  captivated  in  numbers  by 
the  mystic  cults  of  the  Orient.  Out  of  the  East, 
whence  came  the  pagan  gods  as  well  as  the  luxury 
and  sensualism  which  had  sapped  the  moral  life  of 
Rome,  came  also  the  "still  small  voice"  of  a  new 
faith,  with  unfamiliar  messages  of  hope  and  conso- 
lation. It  had  been  singing  its  hymns  for  nearly 
three  hundred  years  in  that  great  under-world,  of 
which  little  note  had  been  taken,  except  in  period- 
ical outbursts  of  persecution.  In  the  vast  network 
of  dark  passages  and  lighted  cells  which  lay  far 
from  the  light  of  the  sun ;  beneath  the  shining  tem- 
ples and  statues  of  the  gods  they  were  undermin- 
ing; beneath  the  groves,  and  gardens,  and  foun- 
tains, and  palaces  in  which  vice  reigned  and  idle 
voluptuaries  were  inventing  new  refinements  of  sin 
to  spur  their  jaded  senses — the  disciples  of  a  lowly 
faith  which  trampled  upon  all  that  these  Epicureans 
lovedfmaking  a  sin  of  pleasure  and  a  joy  of  suffering, 
had  met  to  offer  incense  at  strange  altars.  It  was 
women,  with  their  natural  tendency  toward  a  per- 
sonal devotion  and  a  self-sacrifice  strengthened 
210 


THE    FIRST    CONVENT 

perhaps  by  the  forced  self-effacement  of  centuries, 
who  embraced  with  the  most  passionate  fervor  a 
religion  that  deified  all  that  was  best  and  most  dis- 
tinctive in  their  own  natures.  This  religion,  with 
its  spirit  of  love,  its  trust  in  some  other  existence 
that  would  compensate  a  thousandfold  for  the  sor- 
rows of  this,  appealed  to  them  irresistibly.  Already 
it  had  brought  peace  and  a  martyr's  crown  to 
multitudes  of  the  poor  and  ignorant  who  had  little 
to  lose  but  their  lives.  It  had  gained,  too,  a  firm 
foothold  among  the  cultivated  classes,  who  did  not 
always  forsake  the  things  of  the  world  in  their  ac- 
ceptance of  things  of  the  spirit.  But  the  fact  that  it 
had  become  a  State  religion  had  not  made  it  a  fash- 
ionable one,  though  its  later  votaries  often  outdid 
their  pagan  neighbors  in  luxury  and  worldliness. 

One  day  in  the  later  years  of  the  fourth  century, 
a  rich,  noble,  educated,  and  able  woman  with- 
drew in  weariness  and  disgust  from  the  vanities 
and  unblushing  vices  of  Roman  society,  fitted  up 
an  oratory  in  her  stately  palace  on  the  Aventine, 
and  asked  her  friends  to  join  her  in  the  worship, 
duties,  and  sacrifices  of  the  Christian  faith.  This 
was  the  germ  of  the  Church  of  the  Household,  the 
Ecclesia  Domestica,  on  which  St.  Jerome  has  thrown 
so  bright  a  light — the  small  beginning  of  the  vast 
combinations  of  women,  in  which  one  of  the  great- 
est religious  movements  of  the  world  found  its 
strongest  instrument  and  support.  Nothing  shows 

21  I 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

more  clearly  the  strength  and  moral  purity  of  the 
large  body  of  Roman  womanhood  than  the  num- 
bers who  flocked  to  a  standard  that  offered  no 
worldly  attractions,  and  imposed,  as  the  first  of 
duties,  self-renunciation  and  the  denial  of  all  plea- 
sures of  sense. 

II 

IT  is  not  likely  that  Marcella  had  any  thought  of 
the  vital  significance  of  a  step  that  opened  a  new 
field  to  women,  which  absorbed  their  talents  and 
energies  for  ten  centuries,  sometimes  for  good,  some- 
times for  ill,  and  still  holds  a  powerful  attraction 
for  certain  temperaments.  She  belonged  to  one  of 
the  noblest  families  of  Rome,  and  had  led  the  life 
of  the  more  serious  of  the  rich  patricians  of  her 
time.  Her  mother  was  the  Albina  who  had  enter- 
tained Athanasius  many  years  before,  and  shown 
great  interest  in  his  ascetic  teachings.  He  held  up 
solitude  and  meditation  as  an  ideal,  and  no  doubt 
his  words,  which  she  must  have  heard  discussed 
afterward,  made  a  strong  impression  on  the  ima- 
gination of  the  thoughtful  child.  They  came  back 
with  a  new  force  later,  when  she  lost  her  husband  a 
few  months  after  marriage.  In  spite  of  much  criti- 
cism, she  retired  from  a  world  which  no  longer 
had  any  attractions  for  her,  gave  away  her  jewels 
and  personal  adornments,  put  on  a  simple  brown 
212 


THE    FIRST   CONVENT 

robe,  and  gave  herself  to  religious  and  charitable 
work.  At  first  she  sought  seclusion  in  her  country 
villa,  but  she  was  of  too  active  and  wholesome  a 
temperament  for  a  life  of  solitary  brooding  and 
introspection.  It  was  after  the  early  days  of  her 
grief  were  passed  that  she  opened  her  palace  on 
the  Aventine,  and  made  it  a  center  for  the  devo- 
tional women  of  Rome. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  life  she  planned  to 
tempt  her  ambition.  Nor  did  she  abdicate  the 
world  and  its  pleasures  on  account  of  the  waning  of 
her  charms.  She  was  still  in  the  fullness  of  life, 
young,  beautiful,  rich,  and  much  sought  in  marriage 
by  men  of  the  highest  rank  and  position.  In  her 
persistent  refusal  of  their  brilliant  offers  she  met 
with  great  opposition  from  her  family,  who  evi- 
dently preferred  the  ascetic  life  for  some  one  outside 
of  their  own  circle.  But  she  was  a  woman  of  strong, 
vigorous  intellect  and  firm  character,  as  well  as 
fine  moral  aims  and  religious  fervor.  Born  to  lead 
and  not  to  follow,  she  was  never  the  reflex  of  other 
minds.  We  find  in  all  the  known  acts  of  her  life 
the  stamp  of  a  distinct  and  well-poised  individuality. 
If  she  started  on  a  new  path,  it  was  through  the  re- 
action of  a  pure  and  conscientious  nature  from  a 
society  in  which  the  virtues  seemed  dying,  the  need 
of  an  outlet  for  emotions  suddenly  turned  upon 
themselves,  and  the  going  out  toward  humanity  of 
the  unsatisfied  longing  of  motherhood. 

213 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

To  this  quiet  but  palatial  retreat  on  the  Aventine 
— which  tradition  places  not  far  from  the  present 
site  of  Sta.  Sabina — many  women  fled  from  the 
gay  world  of  splendor  and  fashion.  They  were 
mostly  rich  and  high-born  ;  some  were  widows,  who 
consecrated  a  broken  life  to  the  service  of  God  and 
their  fellow-men;  a  few  were  devoted  maidens. 
The  oldest  of  the  little  group  was  Asella,  a  sister  of 
Marcella,  who  had  been  drawn  from  childhood  to  an 
ascetic  life.  She  dressed  like  a  pilgrim,  lived  on 
bread  and  water  with  a  little  salt,  slept  on  the  bare 
ground,  went  out  only  to  visit  the  graves  of  the 
martyrs,  and  held  it  a  jewel  in  her  crown  that  she 
never  spoke  to  a  man,  though  she  evidently  did 
not  object  to  receiving  letters  from  the  good  St. 
Jerome.  He  speaks  of  her  as  "  an  illustrious  lady, 
a  model  of  perfection,"  and  says  that  no  one  knew 
better  how  to  combine  "  austerity  of  manner  with 
grace  of  language  and  serious  charm.  No  one  gave 
more  gravity  to  joy,  more  sweetness  to  melancholy. 
She  rarely  opened  her  mouth ;  her  face  spoke ; 
her  silence  was  eloquent.  A  cell  was  her  paradise, 
fasting  her  delight.  She  did  not  see  those  to  whom 
she  was  most  tenderly  attached,  and  was  full  of 
holy  ardor."  But  hardships  and  low  diet  seem  to 
have  agreed  with  this  saintly  woman,  as  she  was 
well,  in  spite  of  them,  through  a  long  life,  in  which 
she  won  praises  from  good  and  bad  alike.  Lea  is 
a  dim  figure  at  this  distance,  but  she  was  spoken  of 

214 


THE    FIRST    CONVENT 

as  "  the  head  of  a  monastery  and  mother  of  virgins," 
who  died  early  and  was  greatly  honored  for  her 
goodness,  her  humility,  her  robe  of  sackcloth  not 
too  well  cared  for,  her  days  of  fasting,  and  her 
nights  of  prayer. 

More  noted  was  Fabiola,  a  member  of  the  great 
Fabian  family,  who  had  been  divorced  from  a 
vicious  husband  and  made  a  second  marriage  which 
seems  to  have  lain  heavily  on  her  tender  conscience 
when  she  became  a  widow  shortly  afterward.  In- 
deed, she  went  so  far  in  her  remorse  as  to  stand  in 
the  crowd  of  penitents  at  the  door  of  the  Lateran 
on  Easter  Eve,  clad  in  coarse  sackcloth,  unveiled, 
and  weeping,  with  ashes  on  her  head  and  hair  trail- 
ing, as  she  prostrated  herself  and  waited  for  public 
absolution.  It  is  said  that  bishop,  priests,  and  peo- 
ple were  alike  touched  to  tears  at  the  humiliation 
of  the  young,  gay,  and  beautiful  woman,  the  idol 
of  a  patrician  society.  But  her  religious  enthusiasm 
was  more  than  a  sudden  outburst  of  feeling.  This 
pale  devotee  gave  her  large  fortune  to  charity,  built 
the  first  Christian  hospital,  gathered  from  the  streets 
the  sick,  the  maimed,  and  the  suffering,  even  min- 
istering with  her  own  hands  to  outcast  lepers.  Her 
charities  were  boundless,  and  extended  to  remote 
islands  of  the  sea.  St.  Jerome  calls  her  a  heroine 
of  Christianity,  the  admiration  of  unbelievers.  But 
her  intellect  was  clear  and  brilliant,  and  her  close 
questionings  spurred  him  to  write  of  many  things 

215 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

which  would  otherwise  have  been  left  in  darkness. 
In  her  later  days  she  surprised  him  one  evening  in 
the  convent  at  Bethlehem,  where  she  was  visiting 
her  friends,  by  reciting  from  memory  a  celebrated 
letter  in  praise  of  a  solitary  and  ascetic  life  which 
he  had  written  to  Heliodorus  many  years  earlier. 
It  was  the  letter  which  had  brought  so  much  cen- 
sure on  the  austere  monk,  as  it  sent  great  numbers 
of  noble  women  and  many  men  into  the  ranks  of 
the  hermits  and  cenobites. 

This  woman  of  talent  and  fashion,  who  left  the 
gay  world  to  become  saint,  philanthropist,  nurse, 
and  pilgrim,  died  shortly  before  the  terrible  days 
came  to  Rome,  and  its  temples  resounded  with 
psalms  in  her  honor.  Young  and  old  sang  her 
praises.  The  galleries,  housetops,  and  public  places 
could  not  contain  the  people  who  flocked  to  her 
funeral.  So  wicked  Rome,  in  the  last  days  of  its 
fading  glory,  paid  homage  to  women  of  great  vir- 
tues, great  deeds,  and  unselfish  lives. 

But  the  most  distinguished  of  the  matrons  who 
frequented  the  chapel  on  the  Aventine  was  Paula, 
a  descendant  of  Scipio  and  the  Gracchi  on  one 
side,  and,  it  was  claimed,  of  Agamemnon  on  the 
other.  The  Romans  did  not  stop  at  myths  or 
probabilities  in  their  genealogies,  and  her  husband 
traced  his  ancestry  to  ALneas.  But  it  is  certain 
that  Paula  belonged  to  the  oldest  and  noblest  family 
in  Rome.  She  had  an  immense  fortune,  and  had 

216 


THE   FIRST   CONVENT 

passed  her  life  in  the  fashionable  circles  of  her 
time.  A  widow  at  thirty-three,  with  five  children, 
and  inconsolable,  she  suddenly  laid  aside  the  per- 
sonal insignia  of  her  rank,  exchanged  cloth  of  gold 
for  a  nun's  robe,  silken  couches  for  the  bare 
ground,  gaiety  for  prayers,  and  the  costly  pleasures 
of  the  sybarite  for  days  and  nights  of  weeping  over 
the  most  trivial  faults,  imaginary  or  real.  Even 
the  stern  St.  Jerome  begged  her  to  limit  her  aus- 
terities;  but  she  said  that  she  must  disfigure  a  face 
she  had  been  so  wicked  as  to  paint,  afflict  a  body 
which  had  tasted  so  much  delight,  and  expiate  her 
laughter  with  her  tears.  She  dressed  and  lived  as 
poorly  as  the  lowest  of  her  servants,  and  expressed 
a  wish  to  be  buried  as  a  beggar.  Full  of  a  sweet 
and  tender  humanity,  however,  she  was  no  less 
pitiful  to  others  than  severe  to  herself. 

Of  her  four  daughters,  Eustochium,  a  serious 
girl  of  sixteen,  sympathized  most  with  her  ascetic 
views  and  was  closely  associated  with  her  life-work. 
She  was  the  first  patrician  maiden  to  take  the  vow 
of  perpetual  virginity.  But  the  flower  of  the  fam- 
ily was  her  sister  Blaesilla,  "  older  in  nature,  but 
inferior  in  vocation,"  said  St.  Jerome.  Beautiful, 
gay,  clever,  young,  and  a  widow  after  seven  months 
of  marriage,  she  loved  things  of  the  world  and  had 
small  taste  for  the  austerities  of  her  mother.  She 
found  time  for  study,  however,  as  she  spoke  Greek 
fluently  and  learned  Hebrew  so  rapidly  that  she  bade 

217 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

fair  to  equal  Paula,  who  liked  to  sing  the  psalms  of 
David  in  the  rugged  and  majestic  language  in  which 
they  were  written.  But  a  violent  fever  turned  her 
thoughts  from  mundane  vanities  to  a  life  of  ascet- 
icism. No  more  long  days  before  the  mirror,  no 
more  decking  of  her  pretty  little  person.  She  put 
on  the  brown  gown  like  the  others,  and  devoted 
her  brilliant  youth  to  the  same  service.  But  so 
excessive  were  her  penances,  so  rigorous  her  fast- 
ings, and  so  severe  her  austerities,  that  she  died  of 
them  at  twenty,  asking  God  to  pardon  her  because 
she  could  not  carry  out  her  plans  of  devotion  and 
self-sacrifice.  Her  funeral  was  hardly  in  keeping 
with  these  plans.  All  the  world  did  honor  to  the 
beautiful,  accomplished  woman  who  had  forsaken  a 
life  of  elegant  ease  for  the  hardships  of  a  self-imposed 
poverty.  They  covered  her  coffin  with  cloth  of 
gold,  and  the  most  distinguished  men  in  Rome 
marched  at  the  head  of  the  cortege.  Her  untimely 
death  brought  an  outburst  of  indignation  against 
the  mother  who  had  encouraged  a  self-denial  so 
hard  and  unnatural.  But  this  mother  had  fainted 
as  she  followed  her  idolized  daughter  to  the  tomb. 
St.  Jerome  dwells  upon  the  piety,  innocence,  chas- 
tity, and  virtues,  as  well  as  the  more  brilliant  quali- 
ties, of  the  devote  who  had  gone  so  early,  but  while 
the  tears  flowed  down  his  own  cheeks,  he  reproved 
Paula  for  permitting  the  mother  to  overshadow  the 
religieuse.  He  adds  a  curious  bit  of  consolation, 

218 


THE   FIRST   CONVENT 

however,  for  a  spiritual  adviser  who  has  renounced 
all  worldly  motives  and  interests,  when  he  tells  her 
that  Blaesilla  will  live  forever  in  his  writings,  as 
every  page  will  be  marked  with  her  name.  This 
immortality  he  modestly  thinks  will  compensate  her 
for  the  short  time  she  spent  on  earth. 

Ill 

THESE  brief  outlines  indicate  the  character  and  po- 
sition of  a  few  of  the  best-known  women  who  gath- 
ered about  Marcella.  Some  of  them  lived  with 
her;  others  came  from  time  to  time,  or  were  con- 
stant attendants  at  the  Bible  readings  and  prayers. 
Saintly  women,  and  worldly  ones  who  were  doubt- 
less eager  to  flock  to  the  little  chapel  in  a  palace 
that  represented  to  them  a  great  name,  if  not  a  liv- 
ing faith,  had  been  going  in  and  out  for  some  years 
before  St.  Jerome  came  from  the  East  at  the  sum- 
mons of  Pope  Damasus,  and  was  invited  by  Mar- 
cella to  stay  at  her  house,  after  the  manner  of 
famous  divines  of  all  ages.  It  is  to  this  most  inter- 
esting and  learned  of  the  early  fathers  that  we  are 
indebted  for  the  blaze  of  light  that  was  thrown  upon 
the  Church  of  the  Household.  It  was  also  to  this 
group  of  consecrated  women  that  St.  Jerome  owed 
the  inspiration  and  the  intelligent  criticism  that  led 
him  to  give  the  world  some  of  the  works  on  which 
his  greatest  fame  rests.  The  circle  that  listened  to 
219 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

his  persuasive  eloquence,  born  of  a  keen  intellect, 
an  ardent  imagination,  a  passionate  temperament, 
and  an  exalted  faith,  was  not  an  ignorant  one. 
Most  of  these  ladies  spoke  Greek  and  were  familiar 
with  Greek  letters.  Some  had  learned  Hebrew, 
which  was  not  included  among  the  fashionable  ac- 
complishments of  the  day.  A  few  were  women  of 
brilliant  ability  and  distinct  individuality,  who  could 
not  live  in  the  world  without  leaving  some  trace  of 
themselves.  The  discriminating  mind  of  Marcella 
exercised  itself  on  every  new  problem.  "  During  the 
whole  of  my  residence  at  Rome  she  never  saw  me 
without  asking  some  question  about  history  or 
dogma,"  said  St.  Jerome.  ''  She  was  not  satisfied 
with  any  answer  I  might  give  ;  she  never  yielded  to 
my  authority  only,  but  discussed  the  matter  so 
thoroughly  that  often  I  ceased  to  be  the  master  and 
became  the  humble  pupil."  It  would  have  been 
better  for  him  if  he  had  given  more  heed  to  her  gen- 
tle voice  when  she  tried  to  temper  his  bitterness 
and  restrain  his  unruly  tongue.  We  have  another 
proof  of  the  solid  fiber  of  her  intellect  in  the  fact 
that  she  was  consulted  on  Biblical  matters  by  Ro- 
man ecclesiastics,  even  by  the  Pope  himself;  in- 
deed, it  was  her  counsel  that  led  Pope  Anastasius 
to  condemn  the  heresies  of  Origen  in  the  synod. 

It  may  easily  be  imagined  that  the  pale,  slender, 
ascetic  monk  of  thirty-four,  with  the  light  of  genius 
in  his  eye,  the  fire  of  sublimated  passion  in  his  soul, 

220 


THE    FIRST    CONVENT 

and  the  vein  of  poetry  running  through  his  nature, 
had  a  strange  power  over  these  women  who  lived 
on  moral  heights  quite  above  the  heavy  worldly 
atmosphere  about  them.  This  spiritual  exaltation 
has  swayed  women  of  ardent  imagination  ever  since 
the  days  of  the  apostles,  and  doubtless  swayed  them 
before.  It  was  the  secret  of  Savonarola's  influence. 
Under  the  inspiration  of  the  persuasive  Nicole,  the 
earnest  Arnauld,  and  the  austere  Pascal,  the  great 
ladies  of  France  put  off  their  silks  and  jewels 
with  their  mundane  vanities,  and  knelt  in  the  bare 
cells  at  Port-Royal,  with  the  haircloth  and  the  iron 
girdle  pressing  the  delicate  flesh  as  they  prayed. 
Fenelon  found  his  most  ardent  disciple  in  the  mys- 
tic Mme.  Guyon.  The  pure  soul  of  Mme.  Swetch- 
ine  responded  to  the  earnest  words  of  Lacordaire 
as  the  JEolian  harp  vibrates  to  the  lightest  breath 
of  wind.  "  I  cannot  attach  to  your  name  the 
glory  of  the  Roman  women  whom  St.  Jerome 
has  immortalized,"  he  says,  "  and  yet  you  were  of 
their  race.  .  .  .  The  light  of  your  soul  illumined  the 
land  that  received  you,  and  for  forty  years  you 
were  for  us  the  sweetest  echo  of  the  gospel  and  the 
surest  road  to  honor."  It  is  needless  to  recall  the 
power  of  many  spiritual  men  of  our  own  race  and 
day  in  leading  the  serious  and  gay  alike  into  paths 
of  a  rational  self-renunciation.  Perhaps  the  little 
coterie  in  which  St.  Jerome  found  himself  was  more 
permanently  severe  in  its  self-discipline  than  most 

221 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

of  the  later  ones  have  been.  Doubtless  there  was 
a  little  blending  of  the  church  and  the  world,  of 
literature  and  prayers,  of  gilded  trappings  with  the 
nun's  robe  and  the  monk's  cowl.  But  when  these 
Roman  women  came  into  the  devoted  household 
on  the  Aventine,  they  usually  renounced  the  world 
very  literally,  though  it  is  not  unlikely  that  they 
had  a  following  of  those  who  mingled  a  pale  and 
decorous  piety  with  their  worldly  pleasures,  as  did 
many  of  the  priests  whom  St.  Jerome  attacks  with 
such  biting  sarcasm. 

Then  this  monk  of  many  dreams  and  visions, 
with  his  halo  of  saintship,  was  fresh  from  the  her- 
mits and  cenobites  of  the  Thebaid.  The  even-song 
that  went  up  from  countless  caves  and  cabins  under 
the  clear  Egyptian  sky  still  lingered  in  his  ear  as 
he  expatiated  on  the  paradise  of  solitude.  Forget- 
ting in  his  zeal  the  violent  moral  struggles  he  had 
passed  through  himself,  he  appealed  to  them  in  im- 
passioned words  to  immolate  every  natural  affec- 
tion on  the  altar  of  a  faith  that  invited  them  to  a 
life  of  prayer  and  meditation  far  from  the  tempting 
delights  of  a  sinful  world.  It  was  under  this  teach- 
ing that  the  ascetic  spirit  grew  so  strong  as  to  call 
out  the  indignation  of  the  pagan  society  of  Rome. 
People  of  the  fourth  century  were  as  fond  of  gossip 
as  are  the  men  and  women  of  to-day,  and  no  more 
charitable.  Malicious  tongues  were  whispering  evil 
things  of  the  gifted  and  famous  monk  who  exer- 

222 


THE    FIRST    CONVENT 

cised  so  pernicious  an  influence  over  the  wives  and 
daughters  of  illustrious  Roman  citizens,  inciting 
them  to  fling  away  their  fortunes  for  a  dream  and 
seclude  themselves  from  the  world  to  which  they 
belonged.  He  had  spent  three  years  in  an  atmos- 
phere that  must  have  been  grateful  to  his  restless 
and  stormy  spirit.  But  now  he  found  that  he  was 
bringing  reproach  upon  those  he  most  revered  and 
loved,  so  in  the  summer  of  385,  when  Pope  Dama- 
sus  died,  and  his  occupation  was  gone,  he  bade  fare- 
well to  his  friends,  and  went  back  to  the  East, 
leaving  a  letter  to  Asella  in  which  he  bitterly  de- 
nounces those  who  had  dared  to  malign  him.  Of 
Paula  he  says  that  "  her  songs  were  psalms,  her 
conversations  were  of  the  gospel,  her  delight  was 
in  purity,  her  life  a  long  fast."  Yet  his  enemies 
had  presumed  to  attack  his  attitude  toward  the 
saintly  woman  whose  "  mourning  and  penance  had 
touched  his  heart  with  sympathy  and  veneration." 
But  his  pleadings  for  a  life  of  penitence  and  sac- 
rifice had  not  been  in  vain.  A  few  months  later 
Paula  carried  out  a  plan  which  had  been  for  some 
time  maturing,  and  followed  him,  with  her  daughter 
Eustochium  and  a  train  of  consecrated  virgins  and 
attendants.  The  power  of  religious  enthusiasm 
was  never  shown  more  clearly  than  in  this  able  and 
learned  matron,  who  had  all  the  strength  of  the 
Roman  character  together  with  the  mystical  exalta- 
tion of  a  Christian  sibyl.  That  she  was  a  woman 

223 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

of  ardent  emotions  is  evident  from  the  violence  of 
her  grief  at  the  death  of  her  daughter  and  her  hus- 
band. But  in  spite  of  her  family  affections  she  was 
firm  in  her  purpose  to  leave  home  and  friends  for  a 
life  of  hardship  in  the  far  East.  The  tears  of  her 
youngest  daughter,  Rufina,  who  begged  her  to  stay 
for  her  wedding-day, — which,  alas!  she  never  lived 
to  see, — were  of  no  avail.  Her  little  son  entreated 
her  in  vain.  The  words  of  St.  Jerome  were  ringing 
in  her  ears.  "  Though  thy  father  should  lie  on  the 
threshold,  trample  over  his  body  with  dry  eyes, 
and  fly  to  the  standard  of  the  cross,"  he  had  said. 
"  In  this  matter,  to  be  cruel  is  the  only  true  filial 
affection." 

Several  years  before,  Melania,  a  widow  of  twenty- 
three,  had  sailed  away  to  the  Thebaid,  on  a  similar 
mission.  She  too  had  passed  through  great  sor- 
rows. With  strange  calmness  and  without  a  tear, 
she  had  buried  her  husband  and  two  sons  in  quick 
succession,  thanking  God  that  she  had  no  longer 
any  ties  to  stand  between  her  and  her  pious  duties. 
And  for  this  hardness  St.  Jerome  had  applauded 
her,  holding  her  up  as  an  example  to  her  sex !  She 
too  had  turned  away  dry-eyed  and  inflexible  from 
the  tears  of  the  little  son  she  left  to  the  tender 
mercies  of  the  pretor.  Did  Mme.  de  Chantal  re- 
call these  women,  centuries  after,  when  she  walked 
serenely  over  the  prostrate  body  of  her  son,  who 
had  thrown  himself  across  the  threshold  to  bar 

224 


THE   FIRST   CONVENT 

her  departure  from  her  home  to  a  life  of  spiritual 
consecration  and  conventual  discipline  under  the 
direction  of  St.  Franfois  de  Sales? 

We  cannot  follow  the  wanderings  of  these  fourth- 
century  pilgrims  among  the  hermits  of  the  desert 
and  the  holy  places  of  Syria.  They  were  among 
the  first  of  a  long  line  of  women  who  have  given  up 
the  luxuries  and  refinements  of  life  for  a  hut  or  a  cave 
in  the  wilderness,  and  a  bare,  hard  existence,  illumi- 
nated only  by  the  "  light  that  never  was  on  sea  or 
land."  Melania  established  a  convent  on  the  Mount 
of  Olives,  with  Rufinus  as  the  spiritual  director,  and 
here  it  is  probable  that  Paula  visited  her  before 
settling  finally  near  the  Cave  of  the  Nativity  at 
Bethlehem,  where  she  built  three  convents,  a  hos- 
pital, and  a  monastery,  which  was  superintended  by 
St.  Jerome.  It  was  here  that  the  rich  descendant 
of  the  Scipios,  who  had  gone  from  a  palace  to  a 
cell,  gave  herself  to  prayer  and  menial  duties,  while 
she  scattered  her  fortune  among  the  poor. 

IV 

THE  most  immediate  and  important  outcome  of  the 
Church  of  the  Household  was  this  convent  at  Beth- 
lehem, which  had  its  origin  in  the  brain  of  Paula 
and  was  managed  by  her  until  her  death.  The  little 
community,  with  its  austerities,  its  studies,  its  lowly 
duties,  its  charities,  and  its  peaceful  life,  was  clearly 
15  225 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

visible  while  St.  Jerome  lived  to  electrify  the  world 
periodically  with  some  fresh  outburst  of  rage  at  its 
follies,  or  its  presumption  in  differing  in  opinion 
from  himself.  It  was  here  that  he  did  his  greatest 
work,  and  it  is  of  special  interest  to  us  that  he  de- 
pended largely  upon  the  intelligent  aid  of  Paula  and 
Eustochium  in  his  revision  of  the  Septuagint  and 
the  invaluable  translation  of  the  Bible  known  as  the 
Latin  Vulgate.  His  instructions  to  them  were 
minute,  and  his  confidence  in  their  ability  is  shown 
in  the  preface  to  one  of  his  works,  where  he  says : 
"  You,  who  are  so  familiar  with  Hebrew  literature 
and  so  skilled  in  judging  the  merits  of  a  translation, 
go  over  this  one  carefully,  word  by  word,  so  as  to 
discover  where  I  have  added  or  omitted  anything 
which  is  not  in  the  original."  They  also  revised 
with  him  and  largely  settled  the  text  of  the  Psalter 
which  is  in  use  to-day  in  the  Latin  churches.  He 
said  that  they  acquired  with  ease,  and  spoke  per- 
fectly, the  Hebrew  language,  which  had  cost  him 
so  much  labor.  He  was  censured  for  dedicating 
so  many  of  his  works  to  the  women  who  had  given 
him  such  efiicient  help.  His  reply  is  of  value,  as  it 
expressed  the  opinion  of  the  most  scholarly  and 
brilliant  of  the  early  fathers  on  the  intellectual 
ability  of  the  sex  which  they  seem,  as  a  rule,  to  have 
taken  the  greatest  pleasure  in  denouncing. 

"  As  if  these  women  were    not  more  capable  of 
forming  a  judgment  upon   them  than  most  men," 
226 


THE    FIRST    CONVENT 

he  says.  "  The  good  people  who  would  have  me 
prefer  them  to  you,  O  Paula  and  Eustochium, 
know  as  little  of  their  Bible  as  of  Greek  and  Roman 
history.  They  do  not  know  that  Huldah  prophe- 
sied when  men  were  silent,  that  Deborah  overcame 
the  enemies  of  Israel  when  Barak  trembled,  that 
Judith  and  Esther  saved  the  people  of  God.  So 
much  for  the  Hebrews.  As  for  the  Greeks,  who 
does  not  know  that  Plato  listened  to  the  discourse 
of  Aspasia,  that  Sappho  held  the  lyre  beside  Al- 
caeus  and  Pindar,  that  Themistia  was  one  of  the 
philosophers  of  Greece?  And,  among  ourselves, 
Cornelia  the  mother  of  the  Gracchi,  Portia  the 
daughter  of  Cato  and  wife  of  Brutus,  before  whom 
the  virtue  of  the  father  and  the  austerity  of  the 
husband  paled,  do  we  not  count  them  among  the 
glories  of  Rome?  " 

Through  the  correspondence  of  these  women  with 
their  friends,  we  have  various  glimpses  of  their  life, 
as  well  as  of  the  changes  that  came  to  the  group  on 
the  Aventine.  The  heart  of  Paula  was  first  saddened 
by  the  death  of  her  daughter  Paulina,  who  had  mar- 
ried a  brother  of  Marcella,  and  lived  a  life  of  great 
devotion  in  the  world.  Perhaps  she  found  a  grain 
of  consolation  in  the  fact  that  Paulina's  large  for- 
tune was  left  to  her  husband  to  be  distributed 
among  the  poor.  We  have  a  glowing  account  of 
the  great  funeral  at  St.  Peter's,  where  this  sorrow- 
ing husband  scattered  the  gifts  with  his  own  hand 

227 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

to  the  starving  multitude,  after  turning  his  wife's 
jewels  and  fine,  gold-embroidered  robes  into  plain 
garments  for  the  naked  and  needy.  Then  he  went 
to  his  desolate  home,  took  the  vows  of  poverty, 
and  put  on  a  monk's  cowl,  though  he  still  held  his 
seat  in  the  Senate,  where  he  doubtless  felt  that  he 
could  render  the  best  service. 

This  grief  was  tempered  for  Paula  by  the  glad 
tidings  that  the  little  son  she  had  left  weeping  on 
the  shore  had  married  Laeta,  a  Christian,  who,  with 
his  approval,  consecrated  their  daughter,  a  second 
Paula,  to  the  service  of  religion.  It  was  the  wife 
who  wrote  to  her  for  direction  as  to  her  child's 
education ;  and  we  have  an  interesting  letter  from 
St.  Jerome  giving  careful  instruction  on  all  points 
that  concern  the  training  of  a  young  maiden.  This 
Paula  helped  to  cheer  the  last  days  of  her  grand- 
mother, and  became  the  third  abbess  of  the  convent. 

Fabiola  came  once  to  visit  them,  and  spent  two 
years,  entering  into  all  their  duties,  and  brighten- 
ing the  little  community  with  her  quick  and  eager 
intellect.  But  she  died  soon  after  her  return  to 
Rome.  They  urged  Marcella  to  join  them,  and  sent 
vivid  descriptions  of  their  idyllic  life  among  the  hills 
consecrated  by  so  many  sacred  memories.  "  In 
summer  we  seek  the  shade  of  our  trees,"  they 
write ;  "  in  autumn  the  mild  weather  and  pure  air 
invite  us  to  rest  on  a  bed  of  fallen  leaves ;  in 
spring,  when  the  fields  are  painted  with  flowers,  we 
228 


THE    FIRST   CONVENT 

sing  our  songs  among  the  birds."  To  be  sure,  they 
had  the  hospital  work,  the  menial  duties,  the  prayers, 
and  the  penances,  but  they  had,  too,  long  and  pleas- 
ant hours  to  study  the  holy  books.  Then  they 
were  free  from  the  "  need  of  seeing  and  being  seen, 
of  greeting  and  being  greeted,  of  praising  and  de- 
tracting, hearing  and  talking,  of  seeing  the  crowds 
of  the  world."  The  monastery  and  the  convent 
were  quite  separate,  but  it  is  likely  that  St.  Jerome 
passed  many  moments  in  the  converse  of  his  friends 
and  helpers,  though  his  instructions  were  largely 
given  by  letter.  These  pastoral  pictures,  however, 
with  their  dark  shadings,  did  not  tempt  the  Roman 
lady  from  her  chosen  work.  With  her  clear  and 
sane  intellect  she  saw  her  duty  to  those  among 
whom  she  was  born. 

After  seventeen  years  of  unselfish  labor  for  the 
poor  and  suffering,  varied  by  the  study  of  which  we 
have  the  fruit,  Paula  died  and  was  laid  away  in  the 
grotto  at  Bethlehem.  In  her  last  moments  she  re- 
plied in  Greek  to  a  question  of  St.  Jerome,  that  she 
felt  no  pain,  and  that  everything  before  her  was 
calm  and  tranquil.  All  Palestine  flocked  to  her 
funeral,  which  was  conducted  by  the  Bishop  of  Je- 
rusalem, and  people  of  every  rank  and  grade  looked 
with  tears  on  her  grave  and  majestic  features. 
"  Illustrious  by  birth,"  says  St.  Jerome,  "  more  illus- 
trious by  her  piety,  first  in  Rome  by  the  wealth  of 
her  house,  then  more  honored  by  Christian  poverty, 

229 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

she  scorned  pomp  and  glory,  exchanged  gilded 
walls  for  a  cabin,  and  won  the  esteem  of  the 
entire  world." 

Her  mantle  fell  upon  Eustochium,  an  earnest, 
sincere  woman  of  serious  education  but  less  strength 
and  individuality  than  her  mother,  who  filled  her 
place  with  dignity  and  ability  for  sixteen  years. 
In  the  first  days  of  his  grief  St.  Jerome  was  unable 
to  take  up  his  work,  but  this  sympathetic  helper 
turned  his  thoughts  by  carrying  to  him  the  Book  of 
Ruth  to  be  translated.  At  her  death  she  was  suc- 
ceeded by  her  niece,  another  Paula,  who  had  been 
long  associated  with  her.  The  younger  Melania, 
who  had  followed  in  the  footsteps  of  her  own 
grandmother,  the  first  woman  to  leave  Rome  for  an 
ascetic  retreat  in  the  East,  was  there  also,  and  it 
was  these  women  who,  not  long  afterward,  closed 
the  eyes  of  St.  Jerome,  already  dimmed  with  age. 

But  the  close  of  Marcella's  life  came  some  time 
before  this  last  light  went  out  in  the  Syrian  monas- 
tery, and  it  was  tragical  enough.  For  thirty  years 
she  had  devoted  herself  and  her  large  wealth  to  the 
unfortunate,  and  to  the  interests  of  the  church  she 
loved.  During  the  siege  of  Alaric  and  the  terrible 
days  that  saw  the  ruin  of  Rome,  she  was  beaten  and 
tortured  to  compel  her  to  tell  where  she  had  hidden 
her  treasures ;  but  these  had  all  gone  for  the  relief 
of  the  suffering,  and  there  was  nothing  to  tell.  A 
soldier  with  a  kinder  heart  than  the  rest  helped  her 

230 


THE    FIRST   CONVENT 

to  reach  the  old  Church  of  St.  Paul  without  the 
walls,  together  with  Principia,  the  only  companion 
left  to  her,  whom  she  had  saved  with  great  difficulty 
from  the  fury  of  her  brutal  captors.  A  few  days 
later  she  died  of  these  tortures,  and  the  maiden 
was  left  alone  to  tell  the  tale.  The  Ecclesia  Domes- 
tica  appears  no  more  in  history.  The  little  group 
of  devoted  women  was  already  scattered.  Many 
were  dead.  Some  had  found  refuge  in  the  convent 
at  Bethlehem,  some  in  the  cells  of  the  Thebaid,  and 
some  had  gone  to  carry  the  seeds  of  their  faith  to 
remote  places  where  we  cannot  trace  them.  Strictly 
speaking,  this  was  never  a  convent,  as  there  were 
no  vows  and  women  went  in  and  out  at  pleasure. 
But  it  has  been  called  the  "  Mother  of  Convents." 


THE  revolution  effected  in  Roman  society  through 
these  intelligent  patrician  matrons,  whose  names 
had  great  prestige,  and  whose  wealth  seems  to  have 
been  inexhaustible,  was  a  vital  and  important  one. 
The  women  also  show  us,  even  in  their  often  intem- 
perate zeal,  the  magnificent  possibilities  of  the 
Roman  character.  But  their  value  to  us  lies  largely 
in  the  results  of  the  work  they  began,  which  ex- 
panded into  the  vast  system  of  convents  that  soon 
overspread  the  known  world.  That  these  have 
been  an  unmixed  good  no  one  will  contend  to-day, 

231 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

but  that  they  fulfilled  a  mission  which  was,  on  the 
whole,  a  blessing  in  its  time,  few,  I  think,  will  deny. 
For  centuries  they  furnished  an  outlet  for  the  ad- 
ministrative talents  as  well  as  the  surplus  energies 
and  emotions  of  women.  They  were  also  a  refuge 
for  multitudes  who  had  no  secure  place  in  the 
world,  and  for  those  who  did  not  wish  to  subject 
themselves  to  the  slavery  of  a  forced  and  loveless 
marriage.  If  they  were  not  the  best  things  pos- 
sible, they  were  the  best  things  available.  So 
far  as  these  women  led  lives  of  active  charity, 
and  forgot  their  own  comfort  in  gentle  minis- 
trations to  the  poor  and  suffering,  the  results 
were  good  for  themselves  and  the  world.  When 
they  lost  their  poise  in  ecstatic  visions,  spent  long 
hours  in  useless  austerities  and  morbid  introspec- 
tion, crushing  every  natural  impulse  in  the  effort  to 
attain  an  impossible  holiness  that  was  as  airy  and 
unsubstantial  as  the  fabric  of  a  dream,  they  became 
abnormal,  and  the  results  were  distinctly  bad ;  it 
was  in  the  last  analysis  the  apotheosis  of  emotional- 
ism. The  old  extremes  of  sensuality  were  followed 
by  equal  extremes  in  another  direction.  To  glorify 
pain,  to  neglect  the  person,  to  substitute  states  of 
exaltation  for  family  ties,  was  a  mark  of  piety.  The 
movement  started  with  an  ideal  of  virgin  purity 
that  depreciated  any  life  but  that  of  a  celibate. 
The  immoralities  that  early  began  to  creep  in  with 
the  theories  of  spiritual  marriage,  even  among  the 

232 


THE   FIRST   CONVENT 

cenobites  of  the  desert,  to  the  dismay  of  the  fathers 
themselves,  were  doubtless  due  in  part  to  the  re- 
pression of  tender  human  affections,  and  in  part  to 
the  vow  of  obedience  which  placed  pure  and  saintly 
women  at  the  mercy  of  the  wolves  in  sheep's 
clothing  that  speedily  overran  the  church  and  the 
world. 

The  Christian  ideals  are  essentially  feminine  ones. 
They  exalt  love,  not  force,  and  glorify  the  finest 
and  most  distinctive  traits  of  womanhood.  "  Hea- 
vens, what  wives  these  Christians  have!"  said  a 
pagan  ruler,  struck  with  their  spirit  of  supreme 
self-sacrifice.  "  Kill  me,"  said  Eve  to  Adam,  as 
they  were  being  driven  from  the  Garden  of  Eden ; 
"  then  perhaps  God  will  put  you  back  into  para- 
dise." So  wrote  a  man  centuries  later  who  was 
trying  to  illustrate  the  unselfishness  of  woman  at  the 
crucial  point  of  her  history.  But  the  obedience 
which  was  so  beautiful  to  the  husband  was  quite 
another  matter  when  demanded  by  a  spiritual 
director,  and  family  life  began  to  suffer.  Perhaps 
this  state  of  affairs  is  partly  responsible  for  the  bit- 
ter denunciations  of  women  in  the  writings  of  the 
fathers,  though  by  no  means  confined  to  them. 
"  You  are  the  devil's  gateway,"  says  Tertullian, 
"  the  unsealer  of  the  forbidden  tree,  the  deserter 
from  the  divine  law.  You  persuaded  him  whom 
the  devil  was  not  brave  enough  to  attack.  You 
destroyed  God's  image,  man."  "Eve  was  the 

233 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

principle  of  death,"  wrote  St.  Jerome ;  but  remem- 
bering, perhaps,  how  far  the  work  of  his  life  had 
been  aided  by  women,  he  adds  that  "  Mary  is  the 
source  of  life."  His  attacks  elsewhere  are  frequent 
and  merciless.  "Woman  has  the  poison  of  an  asp 
and  the  malice  of  a  dragon,"  is  the  kindly  tribute 
of  Gregory  the  Great.  "  Of  all  wild  beasts  the 
most  dangerous  is  woman,"  says  St.  Chrysostom, 
who  owed  so  much  to  his  own  mother  and  loved 
her  so  devotedly.  "  It  brings  great  shame  to  reflect 
of  what  nature  woman  is,"  writes  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria. One  might  fill  a  book  with  similar  quota- 
tions. "A  woman  is  an  evil."  "A  woman  is  a 
whited  sepulcher."  This  is  the  burden  of  priestly 
complaint  from  St.  Augustine  to  the  Protestant 
Calvin  and  John  Knox,  who  sang  variations  on  the 
same  theme  in  a  different  key.  Not  even  the  classic 
Greeks  were  more  abusive.  All  this  is  specially 
surprising,  since  we  find  no  such  spirit  in  the  words 
of  Christ,  who  was  invariably  gentle  toward  women 
and  tender  even  to  their  faults.  St.  Paul  was  dis- 
posed to  keep  them  in  a  very  humble  place,  but,  after 
all,  he  was  never  incurably  bitter. 

In  spite  of  these  persistent  attacks,  however,  the 
church  has  availed  itself,  throughout  its  history,  of 
the  talents  of  great  women,  from  the  first  St.  Cath- 
erine to  her  namesake  of  Siena,  from  Marcella  to 
the  gifted  St.  Theresa  and  Mere  Angelique,  the 
thoughtful  saint  of  Port-Royal.  Women  were 

234 


THE    FIRST    CONVENT 

associated  with  all  the  humane  movements  of  the 
primitive  church.  They  held  honorable  and  promi- 
nent positions  as  deaconesses,  were  intrusted  with 
grave  responsibilities,  and  venerated  to  an  extent 
unheard  of  before.  Salvina  officially  protected  the 
Eastern  churches,  and  supplications  for  favors  were 
addressed  to  her  on  account  of  her  ability  and  her 
influence  at  the  court  of  the  emperor.  St.  Chrys- 
ostom  always  spoke  of  Olympias,  the  ablest  of  his 
deaconesses,  as  his  "dear  and  trusted  friend."  A 
rich  woman,  noble,  and  a  widow,  she  had  given  up 
her  life  to  the  service  of  religion,  and  managed  the 
affairs  of  the  great  archbishop,  who  depended  upon 
her  as  St.  Ambrose  depended  upon  his  sister  Mar- 
cellina.  When  he  was  driven  into  exile,  and  the 
flames  were  bursting  from  St.  Sophia,  it  was  to  her, 
not  to  the  bishops,  that  he  gave  instructions  for 
the  government  of  his  church  in  his  absence,  which 
was  destined  to  be  final. 

It  is  worth  while,  perhaps,  to  quote  a  few  lines 
from  a  letter  written  by  this  celebrated  man  to  a 
Roman  lady  whose  influence  he  asked  in  the  in- 
terest of  a  general  council.  After  a  few  generalities 
about  the  sphere  of  her  sex,  he  continues :  "  But  in 
the  work  which  has  the  service  of  God  for  its  object, 
in  the  church  militant,  these  distinctions  are  effaced, 
and  it  often  happens  that  the  woman  excels  the 
man  in  the  courage  with  which  she  supports  her 
opinions  and  in  her  holy  zeal.  .  .  .  Do  not  consider 

235 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

as  unbecoming  to  your  sex  that  earnest  work  which 
in  any  way  promotes  the  welfare  of  the  faithful. 
...  I  beg  you  to  undertake  this  with  the  utmost 
diligence ;  the  more  frightful  the  tempest,  the 
more  precious  the  recompense  for  your  share  in 
calming  it." 

There  were  a  great  many  other  able  women,  and 
some  wicked  ones,  connected  with  the  earlier  move- 
ments of  Christianity,  especially  in  the  Eastern 
Church,  but  they  do  not  fall  within  the  scope  of 
this  paper.  I  mention  these  few  simply  to  show 
that  it  was  by  no  means  the  emotional  enthusiasm 
of  women  which  gave  them  so  much  influence  in  a 
field  for  which  they  were  peculiarly  fitted,  though 
this  may  account  for  much  of  their  subsequent 
power  over  the  masses,  and  many  of  their  errors. 
Most  of  the  leaders  had  great  force  of  intellect 
and  a  special  talent  for  organization. 

The  ultimate  effect  of  conventual  life  on  the 
minds  of  women  is  open  to  serious  question.  The 
founders  of  the  movement  were  matrons  of  pagan 
education.  The  little  circle  on  the  Aventine,  as  we 
have  seen,  was  versed  in  the  knowledge  of  the 
time.  But  learning  was  already  in  its  decline. 
About  the  time  that  Marcella  was  a  victim  to  the 
barbarians  who  destroyed  the  glory  of  Rome,  the 
last  great  feminine  representative  of  the  genius  and 
culture  of  the  classic  world,  the  beautiful  and  gifted 
Hypatia,  was  dead  in  Alexandria,  a  sacrifice  to  the 
236 


THE   FIRST   CONVENT 

mad  passions  of  a  fanatical  mob  that  marched  under 
the  banner  of  One  who  came  into  the  world  with  a 
message  of  peace  and  good  will  to  men.  Even  the 
semi-mythical  St.  Catherine,  the  patron  saint  of 
science,  philosophy,  education,  and  eloquence,  who 
lived  not  long  before, — if  at  all, — was  brought  up  on 
Plato  and  taught  by  pagan  masters.  So  clear  was 
the  intellect  of  this  prodigy  of  wisdom  and  know- 
ledge that  she  was  called  upon  to  dispute  with  fifty 
of  the  most  learned  pagans,  and,  if  the  legends  are 
to  be  trusted,  vanquished  them  all  on  their  own 
ground.  The  philosopher  and  the  saint  were  trained 
in  the  same  schools,  and  they  were  alike  martyrs 
to  their  own  .learning  and  talents,  though  one  was  a 
partizan  of  the  old  order  of  things,  the  other  of  the 
new. 

But  those  who  followed  them  do  not  seem  to 
have  equaled  the  early  women  who  were  the  prod- 
uct of  pagan  schools.  Polite  letters  were  dis- 
couraged, if  not  forbidden.  St.  Jerome  himself 
mourns  over  the  lost  hours  spent  over  Cicero  and 
the  poets,  though,  fortunately  for  his  fame,  he 
never  wholly  broke  away  from  their  influence. 
"  What  has  Horace  to  do  with  the  Psalter,  or  Ver- 
gil with  the  gospels,  or  Cicero  with  the  apostles?" 
he  said  to  Eustochium.  No  pursuit  of  secular  know- 
ledge was  ever  countenanced  in  the  large  bodies  of 
women  swayed  by  a  spiritual  director  who  would 
have  burned  Sappho  and  Euripides  if  he  could, 

237 


MARCELLA,  PAULA,  AND 

and  dominated  by  a  visionary  emotionalism  turned 
out  of  its  natural  channels  and  centered  on  a  single 
idea.  Great  ability  asserted  itself,  not  in  learning, 
but  in  organization,  leadership,  and  an  ever-narrow- 
ing discipline. 

The  representative  pagan  woman  had  her  short- 
comings and  her  disabilities.  She  had  also  her 
virtues.  If  she  had  less  of  the  spirit  of  religion, 
she  had  equally  the  spirit  of  patriotism,  of  culture,  of 
honor,  and  of  duty.  There  was  a  finer  sensibility 
among  the  Christian  women,  and  a  stronger  instinct 
of  self-sacrifice.  None  of  us  will  depreciate  the 
beauty  of  those  traits,  but  without  the  firmness  of 
fiber  that  is  fostered  by  trained  intelligence,  they 
have  their  dangers.  When  they  mark  the  perma- 
nent attitude  of  one  class  toward  another  which  in 
no  wise  recognizes  any  corresponding  duty,  they 
inevitably  result  in  the  servility  of  the  one  and  the 
tyranny  of  the  other.  Such  was  the  relative  posi- 
tion of  men  and  women  in  the  dark  ages.  Even 
chivalry  which  paid  a  tribute  to  weakness  was 
largely  a  theory,  or  a  fashion  that  offered  a  new 
path  to  glory,  and  does  not  bear  too  close  a  scru- 
tiny, though  it  tempered  the  condition  of  women 
and  modified  the  character  of  men,  upon  whom  it 
reflected  great  honor.  Its  ideals  were  fine,  but  the 
gulf  between  the  ideal  and  its  attainment  in  daily 
life  was  often  a  very  wide  one.  There  were  con- 
spicuous examples  of  feminine  courage  and  hero- 

238 


THE   FIRST   CONVENT 

ism  as  well  as  talent,  but  the  lives  of  women  in 
these  ages  were  not,  as  a  rule,  pleasant  ones,  in 
spite  of  a  certain  halo  of  romance  that  was  thrown 
about  them.  No  doubt  it  was  their  suffering  and 
helplessness  that  sent  so  many  of  them  into  convents 
where  they  frequently  found  a  state  of  morals 
little  better  than  the  one  from  which  they  fled. 
It  was  not  until  the  Renaissance  brought  back  the 
old  spirit  of  learning  and  a  vigorous  intellectual  life 
among  women  that  they  combined  the  sweetness  of 
Christian  virtues  with  the  dignity  and  strength  born 
of  knowledge  and  a  measure  of  freedom,  took  the 
rightful  position  that  belongs  to  the  mothers  of  the 
race,  and  once  more  played  a  distinctly  civilizing 
and  beneficent  role  on  the  world's  stage. 


239 


THE  LEARNED  WOMEN  OF  THE 
RENAISSANCE 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN    OF  THE 
RENAISSANCE 


•    Glorification  of  Women  in  the  Fifteenth  and 

Sixteenth  Centuries    • 
•    Their  New  Cult  of  Knowledge    • 

•  Bitisia  Gozzadina    • 

•    Ideals  of  the  Early  Poets    • 

Dante    •    Petrarch    .    Boccaccio    •    Medieval  Saints 
.    Catherine  of  Siena    •    Women  in  Universities    • 

•    Precocious  Girls    •    Olympia  Morata    . 

.    Women  Poets    •    Veronica  Gambara    • 

•  Vittoria  Colonna    • 

•    High  Moral  Tone  of  Literary  Women     • 
.    An  Exception    •    Tullia  d'Aragona    • 


THE    LEARNED   WOMEN    OF   THE 
RENAISSANCE 


HERE  was  a  curious  book  written 
early  in  the  sixteenth  century  by 
a  savant  of  Cologne,  on  "  The 
Superiority  of  Women  over  Men." 
It  was  one  out  of  many  that  were 
devoted  to  the  glorification  of  the  long- secluded 
sex,  but  its  title  serves  to  indicate  the  nature  of  the 
epidemic  of  eulogies  that  raged  more  or  less  for 
nearly  two  hundred  years  after  Boccaccio  set  the 
fashion.  This  he  did  by  singing  the  praises  of  the 
great  heroines  he  brought  out  from  the  shadows  of 
the  past  to  adorn  the  pages  of  his  "  Illustrious 
Women."  It  seemed  as  if  men  had  been  struck 
with  a  sudden  remorse  for  the  unkind  things  they 
had  been  saying  about  women  since  the  dawn  of 
the  world,  and  were  trying  to  make  amends  by  put- 

243 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

ting  them,  theoretically  at  least,  on  a  pinnacle  of 
glory.  Some  celebrated  their  beauty,  others  their 
virtues,  and  still  others  their  talents,  while  a  few  did 
not  stop  short  of  awarding  them  all  the  graces  and 
perfections.  Paul  de  Ribera  published  "  The  Im- 
mortal Triumphs  and  Heroic  Enterprises  of  Eight 
Hundred  and  Forty-five  Women,"  which  was  com- 
prehensive if  not  convincing.  Hilarion  of  Coste 
devoted  two  large  volumes  to  eulogies  of  women 
of  the  fifteenth  and  sixteenth  centuries,  finding 
nearly  two  hundred  to  put  into  his  Temple  of 
Fame.  What  their  special  claims  to  glory  may  have 
been  I  do  not  know  beyond  the  fact  that  they  were 
pious  and  devout  Catholics.  One  man  who  had 
contended  for  the  equality  of  the  sexes  tried  after- 
ward to  refute  himself ;  but  his  recantation  was  half- 
hearted, as  he  confessed  his  private  conviction 
that  logic  was  against  him. 

Cardinal  Pompeo  Colonna  takes  it  upon  himself 
to  demolish  the  old  creed  that  a  woman  is  an  in- 
ferior creature,  convenient  in  the  house,  but  unfit 
for  any  large  responsibility.  He  proves  her  capacity 
for  public  life  by  many  examples,  treats  lightly  the 
plea  of  the  moral  dangers  that  would  beset  her, 
and  shows  what  men  become  when  left  to  their 
own  devices.  After  giving  exalted  praise  to  the 
masterful,  accomplished  women  of  his  time,  he  cites 
his  beautiful  cousin,  the  "  divine  Vittoria,"  as  a 
living  model  of  talent  and  strength,  as  well  as  of 

244 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

virtue,  magnanimity,  and  devotion.  More  pointed 
and  concise,  though  less  definite,  was  Monti,  a 
famous  Roman  prelate,  who  said:  "If  men  com- 
plain of  seeing  themselves  equaled  or  surpassed  by 
women,  so  much  the  worse  for  them.  It  is  because 
they  are  not  worthy  of  their  wives."  The  climax 
of  praise  was  reached  in  a  work  written  to  prove 
that  women  are  "  nobler,  braver,  more  tactful, 
more  learned,  more  virtuous,  and  more  economical 
than  men."  Such  a  pitch  of  adulation  could  hardly 
be  maintained  without  a  protest,  and  there  were  a 
few  men  ungallant  enough  to  say  that  the  best 
proof  of  their  own  sovereignty  was  the  effort  needed 
to  combat  it. 

It  is  pleasant  to  record  that  the  most  ardent 
champions  of  feminine  ability  were  men  of  more 
than  ordinary  caliber.  As  men  rarely  exaggerate 
the  talents  of  women,  though  they  sometimes  make 
goddesses  of  them,  we  may  safely  conclude  that 
their  pictures  were  not  overdrawn  on  that  side. 
Truth,  however,  compels  me  to  say  that  some  of 
the  eulogists  were  accomplished  courtiers  with 
special  appreciation  of  queens  and  princesses  who 
might  make  or  mar  their  fortunes ;  also  that  this 
complaisance  was  by  no  means  universal.  Whether 
the  satirists,  novelists,  and  minor  poets  found  the 
wicked  more  effective,  from  a  dramatic  point  of 
view,  than  the  good,  as  many  of  their  successors  do 
to-day,  or  the  sensual  age  was  more  interested  in 

245 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

pretty  sinners  than  in  saints,  it  is  certain  that  these 
writers  paid  scant  honor  to  women,  and  delighted 
to  put  them  in  the  worst  light,  though  satire  was  in 
the  main  directed  against  the  ignorant  and  the  frivo- 
lous, not  against  the  intelligent  or  the  strong.  Even 
Montaigne  refused  to  look  upon  a  woman  otherwise 
than  as  a  useful  but  inferior  animal,  though  he 
inconsistently  chose  one  of  these  "  inferior  animals  " 
as  his  confidante  and  literary  executor,  because  she 
was  the  "  only  person  he  knew  in  whose  literary 
judgment  he  could  confide."  The  scholarly  Eras- 
mus said  she  was  "  a  foolish,  silly  creature,  no 
doubt,  but  amusing  and  agreeable."  He  was 
happy  in  the  belief  that  "  the  great  end  of  her 
existence  is  to  please  men  " ;  but  he  pays  his  own 
sex  a  poorer  compliment  than  we  should  like  to 
when  he  adds  that  "  she  could  not  do  this  without 
folly." 

So  much  for  the  man's  point  of  view.  But  the 
women  were  not  silent,  and  a  few  glorified  them- 
selves as  naively  as  some  of  their  modern  sisters 
have  done.  If  we  ever  had  any  doubts  as  to  our 
own  modesty  they  ought  to  convince  us  of  it. 
Lucrezia  Marinelli,  a  clever  Venetian  and  a  poet, 
defined  herself  quite  clearly  in  a  work  entitled  "  The 
Nobleness  and  Excellence  of  Women  and  the  Faults 
and  Imperfections  of  Men."  As  a  comparison  this 
seems  rather  unfair,  but  considering  the  fact  that 
men  had  for  ages  given  themselves  all  the  noble 

246 


OF   THE   RENAISSANCE 

qualities  and  women  all  the  weak  ones,  they  could 
not  take  serious  exception  to  it.  Indeed,  they 
evidently  found  it  refreshing.  It  furnished  them 
with  a  new  sensation,  and  was  quite  harmless  on 
the  practical  side,  as  they  still  held  the  reins  of 
power.  Marguerite  of  France,  the  brilliant  and 
lettered  wife  of  Henry  IV,  tried  to  prove  that  wo- 
men are  very  superior  to  men,  but,  unfortunately, 
in  her  category  of  superiorities  morals  had  no 
place.  Mile,  de  Gournay  was  more  generous,  as 
well  as  more  just,  and  declared  herself  content  with 
simple  equality,  though  one  cannot  help  wondering 
how  she  settled  that  matter  with  her  friend  Mon- 
taigne. But  Mile.  Schurmann  of  Cologne  thought 
that  even  this  was  going  too  far.  It  seems  as  if 
she  might  fairly  have  claimed  to  be  the  peer  of  the 
average  man,  since  she  spoke  nine  languages  and 
was  more  or  less  noted  as  painter,  musician,  sculp- 
tor, engraver,  philosopher,  mathematician,  and 
theologian.  Just  how  much  solid  learning  was 
implied  in  this  formidable  list  of  accomplishments 
we  cannot  judge,  but  it  is  clear  that  there  has  been 
a  time  before  to-day  when  women  aimed  to  know 
everything,  though  there  was  a  safeguard  against 
shattered  nerves  in  the  fact  that  there  were  not  so 
many  books  to  read  nor  so  many  brain-splitting 
problems  to  solve.  It  is  fair,  however,  to  suppose 
that  this  learned  lady  did  not  waste  much  time  on 
clothes  or  five-o'clock  teas.  Louise  Labe,  the  poet 

247 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

and  savante  of  Lyons,  takes  a  more  modern  tone. 
In  claiming  intellectual  equality  for  women,  she 
begs  them  not  to  permit  themselves  to  be  despoiled 
of  the  "  honest  liberty  so  painfully  won — the  liberty 
of  knowing,  thinking,  working,  shining."  In  spite 
of  her  courageous  words,  however,  this  paragon  of 
so  many  talents  and  virtues,  the  glory  of  her  sex 
and  the  pride  of  her  city,  asserts  herself  in  a  half- 
deprecating  way,  as  if  she  were  asking  pardon  for 
presuming  to  publish  her  little  verses,  and  shelters 
herself  behind  the  admiring  friends  who  are  willing 
to  "take  half  the  shame."  But  she  was  a  French- 
woman, and  her  day  was  not  yet.  Women  had  so 
long  hidden  their  light,  if  they  had  any,  that  it 
blinked  perceptibly  when  exposed  to  the  winds  of 
heaven  or  the  more  chilly  breezes  of  masculine 
criticism. 

It  is  needless  to  extend  the  list  of  writers  on  this 
subject,  but  it  is  a  long  and  remarkable  one.  The 
books  would  make  rather  interesting  reading  to- 
day, whatever  we  might  think  of  their  quality,  as 
problems  familiar  to  us  were  pretty  thoroughly  if 
not  always  ably  discussed,  and  apparently  with 
great  good  nature.  A  distinguished  Frenchman, 
well  known  in  the  salons  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
unearthed  a  great  many  curious  facts  and  opinions 
hidden  away  in  these  books,  which  are  now  mostly 
buried  too  deep  in  the  dust  of  old  libraries  for 
resurrection,  and  his  own  wise  and  quite  modern 

248 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

conclusions  entitled  him  to  more  consideration 
than  he  received  from  the  women  of  his  time.  But 
this  rapid  glimpse  will  suffice,  perhaps,  to  show  the 
spirit  in  which  latter-day  questions  were  treated 
four  or  five  centuries  ago ;  also  to  throw  a  strong 
light  on  the  position  of  women  during  the  period, 
without  very  precise  limits,  known  as  the  Renais- 
sance— a  period  of  special  interest  to  us,  as  it  marks 
the  dawn  of  a  new  era  of  feminine  intelligence. 

II 

WE  do  not  know  how  it  happened  that  Bitisia 
Gozzadina  stepped  out  of  the  traditional  seclusion 
of  her  sex  as  early  as  the  benighted  thirteenth  cen- 
tury, to  be  made  doctor  of  civil  and  canon  law  in 
the  University  of  Bologna  at  the  age  of  twenty- 
seven.  She  had  already  pronounced  a  funeral 
oration  in  Latin  and  otherwise  distinguished  her- 
self several  years  before.  It  is  no  longer  the 
fashion  to  give  Latin  orations  outside  of  the  uni- 
versities, but  we  know  how  women  fared  a  few  dec- 
ades ago,  when  they  tried  to  speak  publicly  in 
their  own  language.  It  was  perfectly  understood 
that  women  of  such  oratorical  proclivities  forfeited 
all  right  to  social  consideration.  They  were  practi- 
cally ostracized.  Happily,  now  they  are  treated 
about  as  well  as  they  were  six  hundred  years  ago, 
when  people  crowded  the  university  halls  and  even 

249 


THE   LEARNED   WOMEN 

the  public  squares  to  listen  to  this  remarkable 
woman.  We  do  not  hear  that  she  was  called  any 
disagreeable  names,  not  even  a  bas-bleu,  though 
there  is  a  vague  tradition  that  she  had  peculiar 
notions  about  dress.  It  is  said  that  she  had  rare 
beauty,  but  her  charm  and  esprit  made  people 
forget  it. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  medieval  ideals  of  woman- 
hood to  suggest  such  a  phenomenon,  still  less  its 
cordial  acceptance.  Not  even  in  the  early  poets  is 
there  a  trace  of  the  type  of  woman  which  played  so 
distinguished  a  part  in  the  golden  age  of  the  Renais- 
sance. Beatrice  was  little  more  than  a  beautiful 
abstraction,  the  spiritual  ideal  of  a  man  who  dwelt 
mainly  upon  other-worldly  matters.  Petrarch  found 
it  interesting  to  kneel  before  Madonna  Laura  in  the 
clouds,  and  sing  hymns  in  her  praise ;  but  she  was 
only  an  elusive  figure  on  which  to  drape  poetic 
fancies.  In  these  days,  when  it  is  quite  the  fashion 
to  pull  the  halos  from  the  saints  and  put  them  on 
the  sinners, —when  even  the  wicked  Lucrezia  Borgia 
has  become  a  respectable  wife  and  a  particularly 
good  mother,  who  expiated  the  sins  of  her  youth, 
if  she  had  any,  by  her  pious  devotion,  her  kindness 
to  the  poor,  and  her  patronage  of  art  and  literature, — 
it  is  not  surprising  to  hear  that  Laura  was  a  common- 
place matron,  "  fair,  fat,  and  forty,"  who  would 
have  found  it  difficult  to  live  up  to  the  ideals  of  her 
adorer, — even  if  she  had  known  what  they  were, — 
250 


OF    THE    RENAISSANCE 

and  prudently  kept  out  of  so  rarefied  an  air.  This 
blending  of  chivalry  and  mysticism  made  fine  poetry 
but  not  very  substantial  women. 

Boccaccio  paid  a  generous  tribute  to  the  heroic 
qualities  of  the  women  of  the  past,  but  he  evidently 
preferred  them  at  a  distance  or  in  books.  Personally 
he  seems  to  have  had  no  more  taste  for  savantes 
than  for  saints.  He  belonged  to  the  new  age, 
which  glorified  the  joys  of  life  and  liked  to  sing 
love-songs — not  of  the  choicest — to  frail  beauties. 
Fiammetta  was,  no  doubt,  a  clever  woman  and  a 
beautiful  one,  but  she  was  no  divine  Egeria  to  in- 
spire him  with  high  thoughts.  If  he  did  brilliant 
things  at  her  bidding,  the  trail  of  the  serpent  was 
over  them  all.  Perhaps  he  aimed  to  suit  the  taste 
of  the  day,  which  was  neither  delicate  nor  moral ;  or 
he  may  have  lived  in  bad  company  from  which  he 
took  his  models.  We  should  be  sorry  to  take  as 
representative  the  heroines  of  the  Decameron,  who 
must  have  brought  blushes,  which  the  twilight 
could  not  hide,  to  the  faces  of  the  little  coterie  of 
friends  that  sat  on  the  grass  telling  or  listening  to 
these  tales  during  the  long  summer  evenings  at 
Florence,  when  men  and  women  were  dying  all 
about  them.  But  they  give  us  one  phase  of  the 
life  of  the  time,  and  reflect  the  taste  of  an  audience 
composed  mainly  of  men  who  laughed  at  morals 
and  deified  art,  regardless  of  its  aim  or  its  sub- 
ject. The  age  was  not  strait-laced,  but  Italian 

251 


THE   LEARNED   WOMEN 

ladies  were  not  permitted  to  read  Boccaccio.  One 
story,  however,  they  might  read.  When  the  poet 
wished  to  portray  a  good  woman,  for  a  change,  he 
made  a  fine  little  picture  of  Griselda,  the  patient, 
who  was  duly  thankful  for  every  indignity  her  ami- 
able lord  chose  to  offer,  mainly  because  she  thought 
her  sufferings  made  him  happy.  When  these  in- 
credible cruelties  culminated  in  sending  her  away 
loaded  with  unmerited  disgrace,  she  still  thanked 
him  like  a  good  wife  who  was  grateful  for  being 
trampled  upon,  even  when  her  innocent  heart  was 
breaking.  It  was  a  fine  object-lesson  for  the  proper 
education  of  girls,  and  this  marvel  of  self-sacrifice 
was  held  up  from  one  end  of  Europe  to  the  other 
as  a  model  of  womanhood.  Poets  painted  her  over 
and  over  again,  with  race  variations;  moralists 
praised  her;  and  men  quoted  her  to  their  wives. 
Some  instinct  of  justice  prompted  Boccaccio  to 
reward  her  in  the  end  for  all  this  useless  misery, 
which  was  simply  a  test  of  her  servile  quality,  by 
putting  her  again,  after  a  series  of  years,  into  the 
good  graces  of  her  inhuman  husband;  but  it  is 
needless  to  say  that  such  rewards  of  virtue,  if  they 
could  be  considered  rewards,  are  not  in  the  way 
of  a  world  in  which  these  lessons  are  read. 

All  this  shows  how  far  the  heroines  of  the  early 

poets,    whether   good    or   bad,   differed    from    the 

strong,  able,  and  accomplished  women  who  were 

recognized  as  the  glories  of  the  Renaissance.     It 

252 


OF   THE   RENAISSANCE 

suggests  also  the  lurid  or  colorless  background 
against  which  the  latter  were  outlined.  The  cynical 
bachelor  in  Moliere's  comedy  summed  up  the  whole 
duty  of  woman  according  to  the  gospel  of  the  mid- 
dle ages — and,  it  might  be  added,  of  many  other 
ages — when  he  said  that  his  wife  must  know  only 
how  to  "  pray  to  God,  love,  sew,  and  spin."  The 
last  three  qualifications  were  necessary  for  his  own 
comfort,  and  he  had  the  penetration  to  divine  that 
she  might  have  ample  need  of  the  first  on  her  own 
account.  Then  it  gave  him  an  agreeable  sense  of 
security  to  have  a  certain  proprietorship  in  some 
one  mildly  affiliated  with  the  next  world.  "  In 
thy  orisons  be  all  my  sins  remembered,"  says 
Hamlet  to  the  fair  Ophelia.  A  man  might  be  the 
worst  of  sinners  himself,  but  he  liked  a  seasoning  of 
piety  in  his  wife,  provided  it  was  not  too  aggres- 
sive and  left  him  free  to  be  wicked  if  he  chose.  It 
was  like  having  an  altar  in  the  home,  and  gave  it  a 
desirable  flavor  of  saintliness. 

Beyond  the  fireside  and  the  docile  domestic  slave, 
however,  there  was  another  medieval  ideal  of  woman- 
hood, a  religieuse  who  prayed  and  sang  hymns  in 
the  cloister.  Aside  from  this,  it  was  her  special 
mission  to  help  the  poor,  care  for  the  sick,  console 
the  sorrowful,  and  advance  the  interests  of  the 
church.  But  these  women  of  the  cloister,  who  had 
the  altar  without  the  home,  found  a  possible  outlet 
for  their  imprisoned  intellects,  if  they  had  sufficient 

253 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

natural  force.  The  Roman  Church,  which  had 
always  frowned  upon  any  exercise  of  a  woman's 
mental  gifts  in  a  worldly  sphere,  was  glad  to  avail 
itself  of  them  in  its  own  interest,  and  there  were  a 
few  women  more  or  less  distinguished  both  as  lead- 
ers of  religious  organizations  and  counselors  of 
ecclesiastics,  who  kept  alive  the  prestige  of  their  sex 
through  centuries  of  darkness.  It  was  one  of  the 
strange  paradoxes  of  that  age,  as  of  many  others, 
that  a  woman  is  an  irrational  being,  too  fragile  to 
bear  distinction  of  any  sort,  except  when  her  talents 
make  for  the  glory  of  men  or  the  church.  Activity 
in  public  affairs,  so  long  as  they  were  religious 
ones,  was  not  considered  unwomanly,  notwithstand- 
ing the  conservative  opinions  of  St.  Paul.  No  one 
took  it  amiss  when  Catherine  of  Siena  used  her 
wisdom  and  eloquence  in  persuading  the  Pope  to 
return  from  Avignon  to  Rome  after  men's  counsels 
had  failed.  No  one  found  fault  because  her  emo- 
tional exaltation  was  tempered  by  a  vigorous  intel- 
lect. She  was  a  thinker  and  seer,  and  wrote  ably  on 
political  as  well  as  ecclesiastical  questions.  Her  style 
was  simple  and  classic ;  indeed,  she  was  altogether 
phenomenal,  and  had  strange  influence  over  the 
popes  and  kings  to  whom  she  did  not  hesitate  to 
tell  unpleasant  truths.  It  was  quite  fitting  that  she 
should  devote  these  gifts  to  the  interests  of  her 
church  and  incidentally  of  her  country.  Men  hon- 
ored her  for  it,  and  canonized  her. 

254 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

\ 

This  was  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  or  so  before 
the  beautiful  Isabella  of  Cordova,  who  was  more 
learned  and  less  mystical,  gave  up  mundane  plea- 
sures for  the  classics  and  a  degree  in  theology;  and 
Isabella  Rosera  devoted  herself  to  the  conversion  of 
the  Jews,  dazzled  multitudes  with  her  eloquence  in 
the  cathedral  at  Barcelona,  and  expounded  the 
subtleties  of  Duns  Scotus  before  prelates  and  cardi- 
nals at  Rome.  But  in  that  interval  women  had 
made  great  strides  in  intelligence,  and  the  talents 
that  shone  so  conspicuously  in  great  moral  and  re- 
ligious movements  had  become  a  powerful  factor 
in  other  directions.  Bitisia  Gozzadina  had  multi- 
tudes of  successors  to  her  honors. 


Ill 


HAT  women  emerged  so  suddenly  from  a  state 
of  ignorance,  superstition,  and  mystic  dreams  to  a 
position  of  intellectual  distinction  and  virtual  though 
not  legal  equality  with  men,  is  one  of  the  marvels 
of  the  Renaissance.  The  change  was  as  rapid  and 
complete  as  that  which  came  over  the  women  of 
the  nineteenth  century.  It  is  scarcely  less  remark- 
able, in  the  light  of  our  own  experience,  that  their 
new-born  passion  for  learning  met  with  so  little  op- 
position. They  did  not  find  it  necessary  to  fight 
their  own  battles.  There  was  no  question  of  assert- 
ing their  right  to  the  higher  education,  as  we  have 

255 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

been  forced  to  do.  This  was  taken  as  a  matter  of 
course  and  without  controversy.  They  were  edu- 
cated on  equal  lines  with  men,  and  by  the  same 
masters;  nor  were  the  most  distinguished  teachers 
of  the  age  afraid  of  being  enervated  by  this  contact 
with  the  feminine  mind,  as  certain  modern  pro- 
fessors claim  to  be.  Doubtless  they  would  have 
smiled  at  such  a  reflection  on  their  own  mental 
vigor. 

One  is  constantly  surprised  by  the  extraordinary 
precocity  of  the  young  girls.  Cecilia,  the  daughter 
of  an  early  Marquis  of  Mantua,  was  trained  with 
her  brothers  by  the  most  famous  master  in  Italy, 
and  wrote  Greek  with  singular  purity  at  ten.  She 
refused  a  brilliant  but  distasteful  marriage,  and 
devoted  her  life  to  literature.  The  little  Battista, 
whose  talents  descended  to  her  illustrious  grand- 
daughter, Vittoria  Colonna,  was  chosen,  at  an  age 
when  girls  are  usually  playing  with  dolls  or  learn- 
ing their  letters,  to  greet  Pius  II  in  a  Latin  address. 
Anna  d'Este,  who  became  the  wife  of  the  Duke  of 
Guise,  and  in  later  life  was  so  prominent  a  patron- 
ess of  letters  in  France,  translated  Italian  into  Latin 
with  ease  at  ten,  and  was  otherwise  a  prodigy. 
One  might  imagine  these  children  to  have  been 
insufferable  little  prigs,  but  such  does  not  seem 
to  have  been  the  case.  So  far  as  we  can  learn, 
they  did  not  lose  their  simplicity,  and  grew  up  to 
be  capable,  many-sided,  and  charming  women, 

256 


OF    THE    RENAISSANCE 

quite  free  from  pedantry  or  affectation  of  any  sort. 
Without  attaching  too  much  importance  to  these 
childish  efforts,  which  were  by  no  means  uncom- 
mon, they  are  of  value  mainly  in  showing  the  care 
given  to  the  serious  education  of  girls. 

It  is  certain  that  the  place  held  by  educated 
women  was  a  new  and  exceptional  one.  They 
filled  chairs  of  philosophy  and  law,  discoursed  in 
Latin  before  bishops  and  cardinals,  spoke  half  a 
dozen  or  more  languages,  understood  the  mysteries 
of  statecraft  better  than  any  of  us  do  to-day,  and 
were  consulted  on  public  affairs  by  the  greatest 
sovereigns  of  their  age.  Nor  do  we  hear  that  they 
were  unsexed  or  out  of  their  sphere.  On  the  con- 
trary, men  recognized  their  talents  and  gave  them 
cordial  appreciation.  While  the  shafts  of  satire 
fell  thick  and  fast  upon  the  follies  peculiar  to  igno- 
rance and  weakness,  they  were  rarely  aimed  at  those 
who,  even  to-day,  would  be  more  or  less  stigmatized 
as  strong-minded.  Possibly  a  clue  to  this  may  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  in  training  the  intellect  they 
did  not  lose  their  distinctive  virtues  and  graces ; 
they  simply  added  the  cult  of  knowledge,  which 
heightened  all  other  charms.  We  find  constant 
reference  to  their  attractions  of  person  and  charac- 
ter, as  well  as  of  mind.  Novella  d'Andrea  took 
her  father's  place  in  his  absence  and  lectured  on 
jurisprudence  at  the  University  of  Bologna;  but, 
either  from  modesty  or  from  the  fear  of  distracting 

257 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

the  too  susceptible  students,  she  hid  her  lovely  face 
behind  a  curtain.  At  a  later  time  Elena  Cornaro 
— who  was  not  only  versed  in  mathematics,  astron- 
omy, philosophy,  theology,  and  six  languages,  but 
sang  her  own  verses,  gave  Latin  eulogies,  and  lec- 
tured on  various  sciences — was  crowned  doctor  of 
philosophy  at  Padua.  She  took  her  honors  mod- 
estly, and  is  said  to  have  been  as  pious  as  she  was 
learned. 

In  these  days  of  specialties  one  looks  with  dis- 
trust on  so  formidable  an  array  of  accomplishments. 
We  are  apt  to  think  of  such  women  as  either  hope- 
lessly superficial,  or  pedants  without  any  fine  human 
quality.  A  few  salient  points  from  the  life  of  one 
of  the  most  distinguished  may  serve  to  correct  this 
impression. 

IV 

OLYMPIA  MORATA  deserves,  for  her  own  sake, 
more  than  a  passing  mention.  She  was  by  no 
means  a  simple  receptacle  of  heterogeneous  know- 
ledge, but  a  woman  as  noted  for  feminine  virtues 
and  strength  of  character  as  for  the  brilliancy  of 
her  intellect.  Her  father  was  a  distinguished  pro- 
fessor in  the  University  of  Ferrara,  and  his  gifted 
daughter  was  fed  from  infancy  on  the  classics.  At 
six  she  was  taught  by  a  learned  canon  who  ad- 
vised her  parents  to  put  a  pen  in  her  hand  instead 
of  a  needle.  At  twelve  she  was  well  versed  in 

258 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

Greek,  Latin,  and  the  sciences  of  the  day,  petted 
and  flattered  by  scholars  old  and  young,  compared 
to  the  Muses  and  to  all  the  feminine  stars  of  an- 
tiquity, and  in  the  way  of  being  altogether  spoiled. 
In  the  midst  of  this  chorus  of  praise  she  donned  the 
habit  of  a  professor  at  sixteen,  wrote  dialogues  in 
the  language  of  Vergil  and  Plato,  a  Greek  essay  on 
the  Stoics,  and  many  poems.  She  also  lectured 
without  notes  at  the  academy,  before  the  court  and 
the  university  dons,  on  such  themes  as  the  para- 
doxes of  Cicero,  speaking  in  Latin,  and  improvising 
at  pleasure  with  perfect  ease.  The  great  Roman 
orator  was  her  model  of  style,  and  in  a  preface  to 
one  of  her  lectures  she  says :  "  I  come  to  my  task 
as  an  unskilled  artist  who  can  make  nothing  of  a 
coarse-grained  marble.  But  if  you  offer  a  block  of 
Parian  to  his  chisel,  he  will  no  longer  deem  his 
work  useless.  The  beauty  of  the  material  will  give 
value  to  his  production.  Perhaps  it  will  be  so  with 
mine.  There  are  some  tunes  so  full  of  melody  that 
they  retain  their  sweetness  even  when  played  upon 
a  poor  instrument.  Such  are  the  words  of  my 
author.  In  passing  through  my  lips  they  will  lose 
nothing  of  their  grace  and  majesty." 

This  brilliant  and  classical  maiden  passed  eight  or 
ten  years  of  her  youth  at  the  court  of  Ferrara  in 
intimate  companionship  with  Anna  d'Este  and  her 
mother,  the  "  wise,  witty,  and  virtuous "  Duchess 
Renee.  These  were  the  days  when  the  latter  had 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

Bernardo  Tasso,  a  fashionable  poet  who  was  eclipsed 
by  his  greater  son,  for  her  private  secretary,  and 
delighted  to  fill  her  apartments  with  men  of  learn- 
ing. The  little  Anna,  too,  a  child  of  ten,  had  been 
brought  up  on  the  classics,  and  the  two  girls,  who 
studied  Greek  together,  liked  to  talk  of  Plato, 
Apollo,  and  the  Muses  much  better  than  to  gossip 
about  dress  and  society,  or  the  gallants  of  the  court. 
Even  their  diversions  had  a  pagan  flavor.  When 
Paul  III  came  on  a  visit,  the  royal  children  played 
a  comedy  of  Terence  to  entertain  his  eighteen 
cardinals  and  forty  bishops,  with  all  the  magnates 
and  great  ladies  that  usually  grace  such  festivities. 
It  is  quite  probable  that  the  clever  Olympia  had 
much  to  do  in  directing  it. 

The  literary  academy  of  the  duchess  had  a  singu- 
lar fascination  for  the  gifted  young  girl,  who  was 
one  of  its  brightest  ornaments.  "  Her  enthusiasm 
over  antiquity  became  an  idolatry,  and  badly  pre- 
pared her  intellect  for  the  doctrines  of  grace,"  wrote 
one  of  her  friends.  "  She  loved  better  the  wis- 
dom of  Homer  and  Plato  than  the  foolishness  of  St. 
Paul."  She  says  of  herself  that  she  was  full  of  the 
vanities  of  her  sex,  though  it  is  difficult  to  conceive 
of  this  worshiper  of  poets  and  philosophers  as  very 
frivolous.  That  she  had  many  attractions  is  certain, 
as  she  won  all  hearts.  "  Thy  face  is  not  only  beau- 
tiful and  thy  grace  charming,"  said  one  of  the 
great  scholars  of  the  time,  <(  but  thou  hast  been 

260 


OF    THE    RENAISSANCE 

elevated  to  the  court  by  thy  virtues.  .  .  .  Happy 
the  princess  who  has  such  a  companion!  Happy 
the  parents  of  such  a  child,  who  pronounce  thy 
beautiful  name  within  their  doors!  Blessed  the 
husband  who  shall  win  thy  hand!" 

But  this  sunny  life  could  not  go  on  forever.  The 
"Tenth  Muse"  was  called  home  to  care  for  her 
father  in  his  last  illness,  and  proved  as  capable  in 
the  qualities  of  a  nurse  as  in  those  of  a  muse.  At 
his  death  the  little  family  was  left  to  her  care.  To 
make  the  prospect  darker,  her  friend  Anna  d'Este 
had  just  married  and  gone  off  to  her  brilliant  but 
not  altogether  smooth  career  in  France,  and  the 
duchess  gave  her  a  chilling  reception  that  boded  no 
good ;  indeed,  night  had  overtaken  her,  and  she 
found  herself  cruelly  dismissed  in  her  hour  of  sorrow 
and  trouble. 

Other  subjects  had  been  discussed  in  this  literary 
circle  besides  Greek  poetry  and  Ariosto  and  the 
courtly  Bembo  and  the  rising  stars  of  the  day. 
Calvin  had  been  there  in  disguise,  and  they  had 
talked  of  free  will,  predestination,  and  like  heresies, 
much  to  the  discomfiture  of  the  orthodox  duke, 
whose  interests  did  not  lie  in  that  direction.  The 
young  savante  had  listened  to  these  things,  and  her 
eager  mind  had  pondered  on  them.  Perhaps,  too, 
she  was  one  of  the  group  that  discussed  high  and 
grave  themes  when  Vittoria  Colonna  was  there. 
At  all  events,  the  duchess  had  fallen  into  disgrace 

261 


t 
THE    LEARNED   WOMEN 

for  her  Protestant  leanings,  and  could  do  no  more 
for  her  favorite,  who  was  branded  with  a  suspicion 
of  the  same  heresy.  Indeed,  she  was  herself  con- 
fined for  a  time  to  one  wing  of  the  palace  and  for- 
bidden to  see  her  children  lest  she  should  contami- 
nate them  with  her  own  liberal  views.  The  only 
powerful  friend  left  to  the  desolate  girl  in  her  ad- 
versity was  Lavinia  della  Rovere  of  the  ducal  family 
of  Urbino,  who  had  shared  her  tastes,  sympathized 
with  her  views  in  happier  times,  and  now  proved 
her  loyalty  in  various  ways  that  sustained  her 
drooping  heart.  But  there  was  another,  equally 
helpful  if  not  so  powerful,  a  young  German  of  good 
family,  who  had  been  a  medical  student  in  the 
university,  and  fallen  in  love  with  this  paragon  of 
learning  and  accomplishments.  He  was  true  when 
others  fell  away,  and  she  gave  him  the  devotion  of 
her  life.  Both  were  under  the  same  ban,  and  soon 
after  their  marriage  fled  to  Germany,  with  the 
blessing  of  Lavinia  and  some  valuable  letters  to 
her  friends. 

It  was  a  strange  series  of  misfortunes  that  pur- 
sued this  brave  couple.  After  drifting  about  in  the 
vain  search  for  a  foothold  in  an  unsympathetic 
world,  where  they  could  think  their  own  thoughts 
and  satisfy  their  modest  wants,  they  found  at  last  a 
home  in  which  they  set  up  their  household  gods 
and  gathered  their  few  treasures  with  their  much- 
loved  books.  But  when  kings  fall  out  other  people 

262 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

suffer.  No  sooner  were  they  settled  than  the  small 
city  was  besieged,  and  for  many  months  they  went 
through  all  the  horrors  of  war,  famine,  pestilence, 
and,  in  the  end,  fire,  which  destroyed  their  small 
possessions,  and  compelled  them  to  flee  for  their 
lives  through  a  hostile  country,  scantily  clothed, 
unprotected,  and  penniless. 

It  is  needless  to  follow  their  dark  wanderings. 
Suffice  it  to  say  that  they  found  refuge  at  last  in 
Heidelberg,  where  the  husband  was  given  a  pro- 
fessorship, and  the  wife,  too,  was  offered  the  chair 
of  Greek,  which  she  was  never  able  to  take.  Her 
health  had  succumbed  to  her  many  sufferings  and 
hardships,  and  she  died  before  she  was  twenty-nine. 
But  her  strong  soul  rose  above  them  all.  "  I  am 
happy — entirely  happy,"  she  said  at  the  close.  "  I 
have  never  known  a  spirit  so  bright  and  fair,  or  a 
disposition  so  amiable  and  upright,"  wrote  her  hus- 
band, who  could  not  survive  her  loss  and  followed 
her  within  a  few  months. 

There  is  more  than  the  many-colored  tissue  of  a 
life  as  sad  as  it  was  brilliant  in  these  records.  They 
carry  within  them  all  the  possibilities  of  a  strong  and 
symmetrical  womanhood.  The  rare  quality  of  her 
scholarship  was  never  questioned.  She  was  the  ad- 
mitted peer  of  the  most  learned  men  of  her  time,  one 
of  whom  expects  her  to  "  produce  something  worthy 
of  Sophocles."  But  she  was  clever,  winning,  and 
fascinating,  as  well  as  serious.  Living  for  years 

263 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

among  the  gaieties  of  a  court,  she  went  out  into  a 
world  of  storms  and  gloom  without  a  murmur  or  a 
regret,  buoyed  up  by  her  love  and  unquestioning 
faith.  She  refers  more  to  the  joys  than  to  the  sor- 
rows of  this  tempestuous  time.  Lavinia  and  the 
Duchess  of  Guise,  the  friends  of  her  youth,  were 
true  to  the  end.  In  her  letters  to  them  and  to  the 
learned  men  who  never  lost  sight  of  her,  we  have 
curious  glimpses  of  the  home  of  a  woman  who  was 
a  disciple  of  the  Muses  and  a  savante  of  intrinsic 
quality.  While  her  husband  prepares  his  lectures, 
she  puts  the  house  in  order,  buys  furniture,  and 
manages  servants  who  were  about  as  troublesome 
as  they  are  to-day.  One  asks  a  florin  a  month, 
and  reserves  a  part  of  the  time  for  her  own  profit. 
Others  insist  upon  staying  out  late  and  running  in 
the  streets.  Most  of  them  are  grossly  incompetent. 
Poor  as  she  is,  she  is  always  ready  to  help  those 
who  are  in  greater  need,  and  is  constantly  imposed 
upon.  She  even  borrows  money  to  send  to  an  old 
servant  in  distress. 

Then  there  are  the  evenings  when  grave  profes- 
sors come  in,  and  they  talk  in  Latin  of  the  affairs 
of  the  day,  the  religious  persecutions,  or  some  dis- 
puted dogma.  Sometimes  they  sing  one  of  her 
Greek  psalms  which  her  husband  has  set  to  music. 
She  has  her  heart  full  with  the  care  of  her  young 
brother  and  the  little  daughter  of  a  friend,  who  has 
been  sent  to  her  for  instruction.  But  her  life  is 

264 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

bound  up  in  that  of  her  husband,  whom  she 
"cannot  live  without."  A  pure  and  generous 
spirit,  happy  in  her  sacrifices,  and  true  to  every 
relation,  she  is  a  living  refutation  of  the  fallacy,  too 
often  heard  even  now,  that  learning  and  the  gentler 
qualities  of  womanhood  do  not  go  together. 

There  were  many  other  women  of  great  distinction 
in  the  universities,  whose  names  still  live  in  endur- 
ing characters  after  four  or  five  centuries — professors, 
and  wives  of  professors  who  worked  side  by  side 
with  their  husbands,  and  received  their  due  meed  of 
consideration.  We  have  women  of  fine  scholarly 
attainments  to-day,  though  in  the  great  univer- 
sities they  are  mostly  relegated  to  the  anterooms  and 
honored  with  second-class  degrees;  but  fancy  the 
consternation  of  the  students  of  Harvard  or  Oxford 
if  asked  to  listen  to  the  lecture  of  a  woman  on  law 
or  philosophy,  or,  indeed,  on  any  subject  whatever! 
Yet  there  were  great  men  and  great  scholars  in 
Italy,  possibly  too  great  to  fear  competition.  Society 
was  in  no  sense  upset,  and,  so  far  as  women  were 
concerned,  the  harmony  of  creation  was  not  inter- 
fered with.  Indeed,  the  best  mothers  and  the  most 
devoted,  helpful  wives  in  Italy  of  whom  we  have 
any  knowledge  were  among  the  women  who  spoke 
Latin,  read  Greek,  and  worshiped  at  the  shrine 
of  the  Muses  —  all  of  which  may  be  commended 
to  the  college  girls  of  to-day  as  well  as  to  their 
critics. 

265 


THE   LEARNED   WOMEN 


IN  other  fields  there  were  equally  accomplished 
women.  Cassandra  Fidelis  was  the  pride  and  glory 
of  Venice  in  the  days  when  Titian  walked  along  the 
shores  of  the  Adriatic,  absorbing  the  luminous  tints 
of  sea  and  sky,  and  picturing  to  himself  the  faces 
that  look  out  upon  us  to-day  from  the  buried  cen- 
turies, instinct  with  color  and  the  fullness  of  life. 
Poet  and  philosopher,  she  wrote  in  many  languages, 
even  spoke  publicly  at  Padua.  She  caught,  too, 
the  spirit  of  beauty  and  song,  and  was  as  noted  for 
her  music  and  her  graceful  manners  as  for  her 
learning.  Men  of  letters  paid  court  to  her,  Leo  X 
wrote  to  her,  and  Ferdinand  tried  to  draw  her  to 
Naples;  but  the  Doge  refused  to  part  with  this 
model  of  so  many  gifts  and  virtues.  She  lived  a 
century  divided  between  literature  and  piety,  but 
drifted  at  last,  in  her  widowhood,  to  the  refuge  of 
so  many  tired  souls,  and  ended  her  brilliant  career 
in  a  convent. 

This  remarkable  flowering  of  the  feminine  intel- 
lect was  not  confined  to  Italy.  Besides  the  noted 
Spanish  women  already  mentioned,  there  were  cele- 
brated professors  of  rhetoric  in  the  universities  of 
Alcala  and  Salamanca.  Even  more  distinguished 
was  Aloysia  Sigea,  a  poet  and  savante  of  Toledo, 
who  surprised  Paul  III  with  a  letter  in  five  lan- 
guages, which  he  was  able  to  answer  in  only  three. 

266 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

Just  why  she  found  it  necessary  to  put  what  she 
had  to  say  in  five  languages,  instead  of  one,  does 
not  appear,  but  she  proved  her  right  to  be  consid- 
ered a  prodigy.  Her  fame  was  great,  and  she  died 
young. 

Frenchwomen  were  less  serious  and  made  a 
stronger  point  of  the  arts  of  pleasing.  They  ap- 
proached literature  with  the  air  of  a  dilettante,  who 
finds  in  it  an  amusement  or  accomplishment  rather 
than  a  passion  or  an  aim.  At  a  later  period  they 
brought  to  its  height  a  society  based  upon  talent 
and  the  less  tangible  quality  of  esprit.  But  we  have 
the  virile  intellect  and  versatile  knowledge  of  the 
Renaissance  in  Mile,  de  Gournay,  who  aspired  to 
the  highest  things,  including  the  perfection  of  friend- 
ship, which  she  said  her  sex  had  never  been  able 
to  reach;  and  the  famous  Marguerite,  the  witty, 
learned,  independent,  and  original  sister  of  Fran- 
cis I,  who  aimed  at  all  knowledge,  and  tried  her 
hand  at  everything  from  writing  verses  and  tales, 
patronizing  letters,  and  gathering  a  society  of  phi- 
losophers and  poets,  to  reforming  religion  and  rul- 
ing a  state. 

In  England  we  find  Lady  Jane  Grey  at  sixteen 
a  mistress  of  many  languages  and  preferring  Plato 
to  a  hunting-party ;  the  Seymour  sisters,  who  were 
familiar  with  the  sciences  and  wrote  Latin  verses; 
the  daughters  of  Sir  Thomas  More,  whose  talents 
and  accomplishments  were  only  surpassed  by  their 

267 


THE    LEARNED  WOMEN 

virtues ;  and  many  others,  by  no  means  least  Queen 
Elizabeth  herself,  whose  attainments  were  over- 
shadowed by  her  genius  of  administration.  The 
taste  for  knowledge  was  widely  spread,  and  it  would 
take  us  far  beyond  the  limits  of  this  essay  to  recall 
the  women  of  many  countries  who  were  noted  for 
learning  and  gifts  that  must  always  be  relatively 
rare  in  any  age,  though  pretenders  may  be  as 
numerous  as  parrots  in  a  tropical  forest. 

But  it  is  mainly  the  women  of  Italy,  where  this 
movement  had  its  birth,  that  we  are  considering  here, 
and  their  talents  were  not  confined  to  the  acquisition 
of  knowledge.  There  were  many  poets  among 
them.  To  be  sure,  we  find  no  Dante,  or  Petrarch, 
or  Ariosto,  or  Tasso.  Of  creative  genius  there  was 
very  little ;  of  taste  and  skill  and  poetic  feeling  there 
was  a  great  deal.  Domenichi  made  a  collection  of 
fifty  women  poets  who  compared  well  with  the 
average  men  of  their  time  and  far  surpassed  them 
in  refinement  and  moral  purity.  In  their  new  en- 
thusiasm for  things  of  the  intellect,  they  never  lost 
their  simplicity  of  faith,  and  were  infected  little,  if 
at  all,  with  the  cynical  skepticism  of  the  age.  Some 
of  these  numerous  poets  were  connected  with  the 
universities,  others  belonged  to  the  great  world,  and 
still  others  were  women  of  moderate  station,  who 
were  honored  at  the  various  courts  for  their  gifts  of 
mind. 

No  doubt  much  of  this  poetry  was  mediocre. 
268 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

Indeed,  men,  aside  from  the  greatest,  wrote  very 
little  that  one  now  cares  to  read.  It  is  a  truism  that 
"  poets  are  born,  not  made,"  and  they  are  not  born 
very  often.  But  the  work  of  women  which  was 
not  even  of  the  best  received  high  consideration. 
Tarquinia  Molza,  a  maid  of  honor  at  Ferrara, — who 
held  public  discussions  with  Tasso,  wrote  sonnets 
and  epigrams,  and  translated  the  dialogues  of  Plato, 
—was  so  celebrated  for  her  learning  and  poetic  gifts 
that  the  Senate  of  Rome  conferred  upon  her  the  title 
of  Roman  Citizen.  Laura  Battiferri,  one  of  the 
ornaments  of  the  court  of  Urbino,  was  spoken  of  as 
a  rival  of  Sappho  in  genius  and  her  superior  in  mod- 
esty and  decorum.  She  was  an  honored  member  of 
the  Academy  of  the  Intronati  at  Siena.  There  were 
no  women's  clubs  in  those  days.  They  were  not 
needed  when  women  were  admitted  to  many  of  the 
academies  on  equal  terms  with  men.  The  number 
may  have  been  small,  but  evidently  the  way  was 
clear.  They  were  barred,  if  at  all,  by  incapacity, 
not  by  sex. 

One  of  the  most  celebrated  of  these  numerous 
poets  was  Veronica  Gambara,  Countess  of  Correg- 
gio,  a  woman  of  fine  gifts,  many  virtues,  and  great 
personal  charm,  who  was  left  a  widow  after  nine 
happy  years  of  marriage.  Like  her  friend  Vittoria 
Colonna,  she  spent  the  rest  of  her  life  in  mourning 
her  husband,  draping  herself,  her  apartments,  and 
everything  she  had  in  black,  and  refusing  all  offers 

269 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

of  a  second  marriage.  But  this  sable  grief  did  not 
prevent  her  from  managing  her  affairs,  her  little 
state,  and  her  two  sons,  both  of  whom  reached  high 
positions,  with  great  judgment  and  ability.  Her 
husband  had  trusted  her  implicitly,  and  left  her  in 
full  control  at  his  death.  It  was  largely  to  his 
memory  that  she  devoted  her  poetic  gifts.  She  did 
not  write  a  great  deal,  but  her  verses  were  simple 
and  showed  masculine  vigor.  Many  of  them  were 
tender,  though  by  no  means  sentimental.  She 
wrote  on  the  vanity  of  earthly  things,  a  subject  on 
which  women  have  always  been  specially  eloquent, 
as  they  have  so  often  written  out  of  their  own  sad 
experience.  Her  home  at  Bologna  was  a  sort  of 
academy,  where  the  most  distinguished  men  of  the 
age  met,  and  it  was  noted  as  a  center  of  brilliant 
conversation.  One  of  its  chief  attractions  was 
Cardinal  Bembo,  a  lifelong  friend,  to  whom  she 
addressed  a  sonnet  at  ten.  Philosopher,  high  priest 
of  Platonism,  critic,  poet,  and  man  of  the  world,  this 
famous  cardinal  paid  the  highest  tributes  to  the 
distinguished  women  of  his  time.  Intellectually  he 
lived  in  an  air  that  was  somewhat  tenuous,  but  he 
sought  the  society  of  those  who  loved  things  of  the 
spirit — especially  princesses.  It  was  a  convenient 
fashion  among  these  diplomats  and  churchmen  to 
have  two  lives — one  poetic,  Platonic,  with  ecstatic 
glimpses  of  the  celestial,  the  other  running  through 
various  grades  of  the  terrestrial.  The  versatile 

270 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

Bembo  was  no  exception.  Veronica  Gambara,  who 
combined  grace  and  delicacy  with  a  distinctly  mun- 
dane vigor,  sat  metaphorically  at  his  feet,  and  was 
an  ardent  disciple  of  the  new  Platonic  philosophy. 
She  had  natural  eloquence,  and  gave  a  charm  to  the 
serious  discussions  at  her  house.  Among  her  noted 
visitors  was  Charles  V,  who  was  fascinated  by  her 
talents  and  gracious  manners.  She  reproached  him 
and  Francis  I  with  the  quarrels  that  had  flooded 
Europe  with  tears,  and  wrote  him  a  poem  fired  with 
patriotic  ardor,  in  which  she  asks  peace  for  Italy 
and  protection  against  the  infidel.  In  her  poetry 
and  her  letters  she  followed  Petrarch.  Without 
commanding  genius,  and  less  mystical  than  Vittoria 
Colonna,  but  with  possibly  more  strength  in  a  lim- 
ited range,  she  was  greatly  considered  for  her  learn- 
ing, her  poetry,  her  social  graces,  her  practical 
ability,  and  her  spotless  character. 

These  are  a  few  out  of  a  multitude  of  poets  and 
savantes  who  are  of  little  interest  to-day,  except  as 
showing  the  notable  attainments  of  women  in  a  new 
field  and  the  drift  of  public  sentiment  regarding 
them. 

VI 

THERE  is  one,  however,  who  calls  for  more  atten- 
tion, not  only  because  of  her  enduring  fame,  but 
because  she  stood  in  a  light  so  strong  as  to  make 
her,  even  at  this  distance,  a  living  personality  to  us ; 

271 


THE    LEARNED   WOMEN 

also  because  she  represents  the  best  phases  of  the 
Renaissance,  its  learning,  its  intelligence,  its  enthu- 
siasm, its  subtle  Platonism,  combined  with  a  pro- 
found religious  faith  and  a  trace  of  the  mysticism  of 
a  simpler  age.  We  are  apt  to  recall  Vittoria  Co- 
lonna  as  half  poet,  half  saint.  Her  spiritual  face 
looks  out  of  a  century  of  vice  and  license,  crowned 
with  the  delicate  halo  of  a  Madonna  brooding  ten- 
derly over  the  sins  of  the  world  in  which  she  lives 
with  an  air  of  apartness,  as  if  she  were  in  it  but  not 
of  it.  Whether  we  see  her  under  the  soft  skies  of 
Ischia,  happy  and  a  bride,  or  seeking  solace  among 
its  orange-scented  groves  for  the  lost  joys  of  her 
youth ;  at  Naples,  holding  a  lettered  court  with  the 
beautiful  and  accomplished  Giulia  Gonzaga ;  at 
Rome,  talking  on  high  themes  with  a  group  of 
serious  and  thoughtful  men  in  the  cool  shadows  of 
the  Colonna  gardens;  at  Ferrara,  discussing  the 
new  thought,  receiving  the  homage  of  a  distinguished 
circle,  and  generously  using  her  great  name  to 
shield  the  persecuted  and  unhappy ;  or  kneeling  at 
prayers  and  chanting  Misereres  in  the  cloisters 
where,  at  intervals,  she  hid  a  sorrowful  heart — there 
is  always  the  same  flavor  of  purity  and  saintliness 
in  her  character  and  personality  as  in  her  genius. 

The  romance  of  her  life  is  well  known.  She  was 
born  in  1490, — just  before  Lorenzo  de'  Medici  died 
and  Savonarola  expiated  the  crime  of  being  too 
good  for  his  time, — in  a  gloomy  old  Colonna  castle 

272 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

that  towers  picturesquely  above  the  rambling, 
medieval  town  of  Marino  among  the  Alban  hills. 
But  she  did  not  stay  there  long,  as  she  was  be- 
trothed at  four  to  the  Marquis  of  Pescara,  and,  for 
some  inexplicable  reason,  sent  away  to  the  sunny 
island  of  Ischia  to  be  educated  with  him  by  his  sis- 
ter Costanza  d'Avalos,  Duchess  of  Francavilla,  a 
woman  so  noted  for  wisdom,  ability,  and  virtue  that 
she  was  made  governor,  or  chatelaine,  of  the  island 
at  her  husband's  death.  For  once,  this  commercial 
arrangement  proved  a  fortunate  one,  as  the  brilliant 
duchess  was  as  famous  for  her  culture  and  the  let- 
tered society  gathered  about  her  as  for  her  practi- 
cal talent  in  ruling.  The  gifted  child  grew  up 
among  poets  and  men  of  learning,  with  her  future 
lord  as  her  playmate  and  a  woman  of  intellect  as  her 
guide.  Add  to  this  the  changing  splendors  of  sea 
and  sky,  the  haunting  memories  of  the  beautiful 
shore  that  curves  away  from  the  headlands  of 
Misenum  to  the  Isles  of  the  Sirens,  the  repose 
broken  only  by  the  cool  dripping  of  fountains,  the 
plashing  of  the  indolent  waves  on  the  beach,  and 
the  plaintive  songs  of  the  boatmen  floating  at  even- 
ing across  the  tranquil  water  to  find  a  sweet  refrain 
in  the  music  of  the  vesper  bell — and  we  have  the 
milieu  of  the  poet.  There  were  royal  festivities 
when  the  king  came  to  break  the  monotony  of  the 
days,  occasional  glimpses  of  the  magnificent  court 
pageants  at  Naples,  and  rare  visits  to  the  somber 
18  273 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

ancestral  home  on  the  Alban  Lake.  But  the  mind 
of  the  thoughtful  maiden  was  more  in  harmony 
with  the  quiet  scenes  among  which  most  of  her 
days  were  passed,  and  had  taken  its  permanent 
tone  when  the  youthful  lovers  were  married  at  about 
eighteen,  or  possibly  nineteen. 

Two  or  three  years  of  unclouded  happiness,  and 
this  idyllic  life  came  to  an  end.  The  marquis  was 
called  to  the  army,  and  the  devoted  wife  saw  him 
only  at  long  intervals  during  his  brilliant  career, 
which  he  closed  some  fifteen  years  later  with  a 
tarnished  name.  The  blow  that  shattered  the 
hopes  of  Vittoria  came  near  costing  her  life.  In 
the  first  agony  of  her  grief  she  fled  to  a  convent, 
and  wished  to  take  the  veil  of  a  nun ;  but  she  was 
too  valuable  in  her  own  sphere  to  be  lost  to  the 
world,  and  Clement  VII  forbade  it.  Her  only 
resource  was  to  consecrate  herself  to  the  memory 
of  one  she  never  ceased  to  call  mio  bel  sole,  to  re- 
ligion, and  to  matters  of  the  intellect. 

How  she  reconciled  her  undying  love  with  the 
faithless  and  treacherous  character  of  her  Spanish 
husband,  who  was  willing  to  sell  his  loyalty  for  a 
kingdom,  we  do  not  know.  That  she  was  ignorant 
of  his  disgrace  is  not  probable.  She  had  given  him 
high  counsel,  putting  honor  and  virtue  above  titles 
and  worldly  grandeur,  and  saying  that  she  had  no 
wish  to  be  the  wife  of  a  king,  since  she  is  already 
the  wife  of  a  captain  who  has  vanquished  kings,  not 
274 


OF    THE    RENAISSANCE 

only  by  his  bravery,  but  by  his  magnanimity.  But 
she  had,  to  a  marked  degree,  the  fine  idealism  that 
gives  vitality  to  a  sentiment.  It  is  shown  in  the 
poise  of  the  shapely  head,  in  the  broad,  high,  specu- 
lative forehead  that  hid  a  wealth  of  imagination  and 
exalted  feeling,  in  the  large,  soft,  penetrating  dark 
eyes,  lighted  with  sensibility,  which  relieved  the 
delicately  chiseled  features  and  firm  but  beautiful 
mouth  from  a  tinge  of  asceticism.  She  was  tall, 
stately,  and  graceful,  with  a  fair,  variable  face  of 
pure  outlines,  and  hair  of  Titian  gold.  Her  picture 
is  one  of  a  rare  woman,  capable  of  high  thought, 
great  generosity,  great  sacrifice,  and  great  devotion. 
This  love  of  her  youth  was  interwoven  with  every 
fiber  of  her  being.  The  child  with  whom  she  had 
wandered  hand  in  hand  by  the  sea ;  the  youth  who 
had  responded  to  her  every  taste  and  thought, 
poetic  like  herself,  proud,  accomplished,  handsome, 
and  knightly ;  the  man  who  had  whiled  away  the 
hours  of  his  captivity  in  writing  for  her  a  rather 
stilted  Dialogue  of  Love,  were  alike  transfigured  in 
her  memory.  If  she  heard  that  he  was  a  traitor, 
probably  she  did  not  believe  it,  and  the  very  fact  of 
unmerited  disgrace  would  have  been  an  added  claim 
upon  her  affection.  She  was  young,  and  naturally 
slow  to  think  that  an  act  which  Pope  and  cardinals 
had  assured  him  was  quite  consistent  with  the  finest 
honor  could  be  treasonable  at  all,  though  she  had  a 
keen  moral  sense  that  led  her  straight  to  the  heart  of 

275 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

things.  Then  the  harshness  and  cruelty  for  which 
he  was  noted  belonged  to  the  exigencies  of  war, 
which  is  never  merciful.  It  was  easy  to  malign  him 
there.  At  all  events,  it  is  certain  that  the  faults  of 
this  brilliant  cavalier  of  very  flexible  honor  were 
swept  away  in  a  flood  of  happy  memories  and  im- 
perishable love.  Many  were  the  suitors  who  pre- 
sented themselves  to  the  gifted,  rich,  and  beautiful 
princess,  who  was  scarcely  past  thirty-five ;  but  she 
had  gathered  the  wealth  of  her  affections  in  a  vase 
that  was  broken,  and  for  her  there  was  no  second 
gathering.  The  spirit  that  held  captive  her  own 
still  shone  in  the  heavens  as  a  sun  that  lighted  the 
inner  temple  of  her  soul  and  made  its  hidden  trea- 
sures luminous. 

When  she  rallied  a  little  from  the  first  stunning 
blow,  she  began  to  write.  This  had  been  one  of 
the  diversions  of  her  youth,  and  she  had  often  sent 
tender  verses  to  her  husband.  Now  it  offered  an 
outlet  to  her  sorrows,  and,  at  the  same  time,  a  trib- 
ute to  his  memory.  Never  was  such  a  monument 
dedicated  to  a  man  as  this  series  of  more  than 
a  hundred  sonnets.  Her  love  colored  all  her 
thoughts,  and  gave  to  her  clear,  strong  intellect  a 
living  touch  that  comes  only  from  the  heart.  If 
one  misses  in  these  verses  the  fire  of  Sappho,  one  is 
conscious  of  coming  in  contact  with  a  pure  and  lofty 
soul  in  which  earthly  passion  has  been  transformed 
into  a  glow  of  divine  tenderness.  But  the  note  of 

276 


OF    THE    RENAISSANCE 

longing  and  loneliness  is  always  there.  Laura  was 
no  more  idealized  by  her  poet  lover  than  was  this 
unworthy  man  by  his  desolate  wife.  For  seven 
years  her  poems  were  a  series  of  variations  on  the 
same  theme.  The  sun  shone  no  longer  for  her; 
there  was  no  more  beauty  in  tree,  or  flower,  or 
sparkling  waves;  the  birds  were  mute,  and  nature 
was  draped  in  gloom.  In  death  only  there  was 
hope ;  but  even  here  was  the  dreadful  possibility 
that  she  might  not  be  perfect  enough  to  meet  this 
paragon  of  all  noble  qualities  in  heaven.  So  Mrs. 
Browning  might  have  written.  She  had  the  same 
tendency  to  transfigure  her  idols  in  the  light  of  the 
imagination,  the  same  meditative  quality,  the  same 
fine  idealism.  But  she  lived  and  died  a  happy  wife, 
while  her  sister  poet  spent  lonely  years  in  the  com- 
panionship of  a  memory. 

Time,  however,  which  tempers  all  things,  if  it 
does  not  change  them,  brought  a  new  element  into 
her  thoughts,  and  her  elegiac  songs  rose  to  cathedral 
hymns.  In  her  religious  sonnets  she  reveals  the 
intrinsic  quality  of  her  mind  and  its  firm  grasp  of 
spiritual  things.  Some  of  them  touch  on  forbidden 
questions,  and  wander  among  the  dangerous  heresies 
of  the  new  age.  Theology  and  poetry  are  not  quite 
in  accord,  and  these  are  of  value  mainly  as  showing 
the  liberal  drift  of  her  opinions.  Others  are  the 
spontaneous  outpouring  of  a  full  and  ardent  soul. 
Rich  in  thought,  alive  with  feeling,  and  lighted  with 

277 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

hope,  they  soar  on  the  wings  of  an  exalted  faith  far 
above  the  heavy  and  sin-laden  air  of  her  time. 

And,  as  the  light  streams  gently  from  above, 
Sin's  gloomy  mantle  bursts  its  bonds  in  twain, 
And  robed  in  white,  I  seem  to  feel  again 

The  first  sweet  sense  of  innocence  and  love. 

This  gentle-hearted  poet  was  a  purist  in  style,  and 
chiseled  carefully  the  vase  in  which  she  put  her 
thoughts,  not  for  the  sake  of  the  vase,  but  reverently, 
to  make  it  worthy  of  the  thought.  These  hymns 
fall  upon  the  ear  like  some  thrilling  strain  from 
Palestrina,  who  translated  into  song  the  dreams,  the 
aspirations,  the  baffled  hopes,  the  sorrows  of  a  race 
in  its  decline,  and  sent  it  along  the  centuries  with 
its  everlasting  message  of  love  and  consolation. 
There  was  something  akin  in  the  two  spirits  that 
lived  at  the  same  time,  though  Palestrina  was  young 
when  the  poet  neared  the  evening.  It  was  he  who 
first  gave  to  music  a  living  soul.  Vittoria  gave 
the  world  its  first  collection  of  religious  poems,  and 
poured  her  own  heart  into  them.  Both  vibrated  to 
the  deepest  note  of  their  age.  Only  the  arts  differed, 
and  the  quality  of  thought,  and  the  outer  vestments 
of  life. 

But  we  are  far  from  the  days  when  this  beautiful 
woman  in  her  magnificent  robes  of  crimson  velvet 
and  gold,  attended  by  six  ladies  in  azure  damask 
and  as  many  grooms  in  blue  and  yellow  satin,  was 

278 


OF    THE    RENAISSANCE 

one  of  the  central  figures  in  some  royal  wedding 
festivities  at  Naples.  Mundane  pleasures  had  long 
ago  lost  their  charm,  and  the  still  lovely  poet  in  her 
sable  costume  finds  her  consolation  in  ministering  to 
the  poor  and  suffering,  and  in  an  active  interest  in 
all  the  intellectual  movements  of  her  time.  She 
was  the  friend  of  great  men  and  distinguished 
women.  Cardinal  Bembo,  the  famous  "  dictator  of 
letters,"  lauds  her  virtues  and  her  genius  while  he 
craves  her  favor.  She  writes  of  the  gifts  of  her 
"  divine  Bembo,"  addresses  sonnets  to  him,  and 
receives  his  "  celestial,  holy,  and  very  Platonic " 
affection  with  gracious  dignity.  Castiglione  sends 
her  his  manuscript  of  "  II  Cortegiano  "  for  criticism, 
and  complains  that  she  held  it  too  long  and  copied 
it  for  other  eyes.  She  gives  discriminating  praise 
of  the  "  subject  as  well  as  the  tact,  elegance,  and 
animation  of  the  style,"  but  she  suggests  the  wis- 
dom of  dwelling  less  persistently  on  the  beauty 
and  virtue  of  living  women.  The  unscrupulous  but 
keen-witted  Aretino  pays  her  compliments  and 
begs  her  aid.  "  One  must  count  with  the  tastes  of 
one's  contemporaries,"  he  writes,  in  half-apology  for 
his  own  base  standards ;  "  only  amusement  or  scan- 
dal are  lucrative ;  they  burn  with  unholy  passions,  as 
you  do  with  an  inextinguishable  angelic  flame.  Ser- 
mons and  vespers  for  you,  music  and  comedy  for 
others.  .  .  .  Why  write  serious  books?  After 
all,  I  write  to  live."  This  was  the  note  of  the  ne*v 

279 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

age  in  an  ever-descending  scale — the  death-knell  of 
all  that  is  fine  and  noble  in  any  age.  It  is  needless 
to  ask  what  this  high-souled  woman  thought  of 
sordid  motives  that  were  by  no  means  confined  to 
the  Italian  decadence ;  but  she  managed  the  vain 
and  vindictive  man,  who  held  reputations  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand,  with  graceful  dignity  and  infi- 
nite tact.  Living  at  a  time  when  the  great  poets 
were  passing,  and  literature  was  fast  becoming  the 
trade  of  artisans  who  appealed  to  the  lowest  passions 
of  a  sense-intoxicated  people,  or  the  tool  of  cynics 
and  courtiers,  she  held  her  own  way  serenely,  su- 
perior to  worldly  motives  and  worldly  entangle- 
ments. There  are  numerous  glimpses  of  her  in  the 
poems  and  letters  of  her  time,  but  the  chorus  of 
praise  was  universal.  "  She  has  more  eloquence 
and  breathes  more  sweetness  than  all  other  women," 
says  Ariosto,  "  and  gives  such  force  to  her  lofty 
words  that  she  adorns  the  heavens  in  our  day  with 
another  sun."  And  again :  "  She  has  not  only  made 
herself  immortal  by  her  beautiful  style,  than  which 
I  have  heard  none  better,  but  she  can  raise  from 
the  tomb  those  of  whom  she  speaks  or  writes,  and 
make  them  live  forever." 

It  was  her  sympathy  with  all  high  things  that 
made  her  so  warm  a  friend  to  the  apostles  of  the  new 
religious  thought.  Though  an  ardent  Catholic,  she 
was  no  bigot  to  be  held  within  the  iron-bound  limits 
of  a  creed  which  had  lost  its  moral  force,  no  beauty- 
280 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

i 

loving  disciple  of  an  estheticism  that  veiled  crime 
and  corruption  with  the  splendors  of  a  ceremonial, 
sang  Te  Deums  over  the  triumphs  of  the  wicked 
and  Misereres  while  plotting  assassination.  She 
felt  the  need  of  a  purer  morality  and  a  deeper 
spirituality,  though,  like  Savonarola,  she  wished 
reform  within  the  church,  not  outside  of  it.  We 
find  her  always  in  the  ranks  of  the  thinkers.  She 
was  the  devoted  friend  of  Contarini,  the  broad- 
minded  cardinal,  who  grieved  so  sincerely  over  the 
universal  corruption,  and  died,  possibly  of  that  grief 
and  his  own  helplessness,  before  the  hour  came 
when  it  was  a  crime  to  speak  one's  best  thoughts. 
He  should  have  been  Pope,  she  said  in  her  sonnet 
on  his  death,  to  make  the  age  happy.  It  was  a 
striking  tribute  to  the  vigorous  quality  of  her  intel- 
lect that  he  dedicated  to  her  his  work  "  On  Free 
Will."  Fra  Bernardino  she  defended  when  he  fled 
to  Switzerland  and  joined  the  Lutherans,  but  she 
was  powerless  to  help  him  in  his  hours  of  darkness. 
Even  this  brought  her  under  the  suspicion  of  heresy. 
Carnesecchi,  another  of  her  friends,  was  burned,  and 
one  of  the  chief  accusations  against  a  Florentine  who 
was  condemned  to  a  like  fate  years  afterward  was 
that  he  belonged  to  her  circle.  "  It  is  an  inexpres- 
sible pleasure  to  me  that  my  counsels  are  approved 
by  a  woman  of  so  much  virtue  and  wisdom,"  wrote 
Sadolet  to  Cardinal  Pole.  She  sustained  these 
powerful  prelates  by  the  prestige  of  her  name  and 

281 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

the  fullness  of  her  sympathy.  The  liberal  circle  of 
her  friend  Renee  attracted  her  to  Ferrara,  but  the 
air  was  full  of  suspicion.  They  talked  much  and 
pleasantly  of  literature,  poetry,  and  the  arts ;  when 
they  touched  upon  the  new  thought  which  was  rev- 
olutionizing the  world,  it  was  behind  closed  doors, 
and  with  the  vivid  consciousness  that  the  walls  had 
ears  which  stretched  to  Rome. 

But  to-day  Vittoria  Colonna  is  known  best  as  the 
friend  of  Michelangelo,  to  whom  she  was  a  polar 
star,  an  inspiration,  an  everlasting  joy.  "  Without 
wings,  I  fly  with  your  wings ;  by  your  genius  I  am 
raised  toward  the  skies,"  he  writes.  "  In  your 
soul  my  thought  is  born ;  my  words  are  in  your 
mind."  It  was  the  perfect  sympathy  of  finely 
attuned  spirits,  the  divine  friendship  that  exists  only 
between  men  and  women  who  live  at  an  altitude 
far  above  the  things  of  sense.  The  age  was  full  of 
talk  about  Platonic  love.  A  few  reached  it,  and 
they  were  of  the  spiritual  elect;  but  they  did  not 
talk  much  about  it.  To  this  solitary  artist,  who 
dwelt  on  lonely  heights,  the  divining  and  sympa- 
thetic spirit  of  a  thoughtful  woman  was  a  revelation. 
He  wrote  sonnets  to  her,  sometimes  calm  and  philo- 
sophical, sometimes  fiery  and  passionate.  He  also 
sent  her  poems  and  sketches  for  criticism.  The 
tact  with  which  she  drew  out  the  best  in  this 
colossal  man  is  shown  by  a  conversation  in  the 
softly  lighted  Chapel  of  San  Silvestro,  as  recorded 

282 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

by  an  artist  who  was  present.  She  had  been  listen- 
ing to  a  private  exposition  of  St.  Paul,  but  when 
Michelangelo  came  in,  she  delicately  turned  the 
conversation  upon  the  subject  nearest  his  heart,  on 
which  it  was  not  easy  to  lead  him  to  talk.  Both 
were  apart  from  the  spirit  of  an  age  that  was  fast 
tearing  down  the  few  ethical  standards  it  had,  and 
virtually  taking  for  its  motto  the  most  dangerous  of 
fallacies,  "Art  for  art's  sake."  "True  painting  is 
only  an  image  of  the  perfection  of  God,  a  shadow 
of  the  pencil  with  which  he  paints,  a  melody,  a 
striving  after  harmony,"  said  the  master.  And  the 
lady,  in  her  turn,  spoke,  until  the  tears  fell,  of  the 
divine  message  of  art  that  "  leads  to  piety,  to  glory, 
to  greatness."  They  discussed,  too,  her  project  of 
building  a  convent  on  the  spot  where  Nero  had 
watched  the  burning  of  Rome,  that  "  virtuous  women 
might  efface  the  memory  of  so  wicked  a  man." 

No  shadow  ever  rested  on  this  friendship. 
Michelangelo  was  past  sixty  and  Vittoria  was  not  far 
from  forty-seven  when  they  met.  There  is  no 
trace  of  tender  sentiment  in  their  brief  correspon- 
dence, though  a  deep  and  abiding  friendship  is 
apparent.  Once  she  playfully  writes  him  to  cur- 
tail his  letters  lest  they  interfere  with  his  duties 
at  St.  Peter's  and  keep  her  from  the  Chapel  of 
St.  Catherine,  "  so  that  one  would  fail  in  duty 
to  the  sisters  of  Christ  and  the  other  to  his  Vicar." 
She  said  that  those  who  knew  only  his  works 

283 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

were  ignorant  of  the  best  part  of  the  man.  When 
she  lay  dead  before  him  he  kissed  her  hand  rev- 
erently, and  went  out  in  inconsolable  grief  to  regret 
the  rest  of  his  life  that  he  had  not  dared  to  leave  a 
kiss  on  the  pure  forehead. 

In  early  life,  Vittoria,  having  no  children  of  her 
own,  had  undertaken  the  care  of  her  husband's 
cousin,  the  Marchese  del  Vasto,  a  boy  of  singular 
beauty,  fine  gifts,  but  wild  and  passionate  temper, 
which  no  one  had  been  able  to  control.  Under  her 
gentle  and  wise-  influence  he  had  grown  to  be  a 
brilliant  and  accomplished  man,  who  never  ceased 
to  regard  her  with  the  greatest  affection.  She  said 
that  she  could  not  be  considered  childless  after 
molding  the  moral  character  of  this  son  of  her 
adoption.  It  was  one  of  her  great  griefs  that  he 
died  in  the  flower  of  his  manhood,  when  the  shad- 
ows were  darkening  about  her  and  she  needed 
more  than  ever  his  sympathy  and  support. 

At  this  time  fate  laid  upon  her  a  heavy  hand. 
When  Rome  became  unsafe,  she  joined  the  devoted 
group  that  surrounded  Cardinal  Pole  at  Viterbo ;  but 
the  last  years  before  her  final  illness  were  spent  in  the 
Benedictine  convent  of  St.  Anne,  where  she  prayed 
and  wrote  devotional  poems.  When  she  grew  ill  a 
celebrated  physician  said  that  the  fairest  light  in 
this  world  would  go  out  unless  some  physician  for 
the  mind  could  be  found.  Her  friends  were  scat- 
tered or  dead ;  the  misfortunes  of  her  family  weighed 

284 


OF   THE   RENAISSANCE 

heavily  on  her  spirit;  the  cruelties  of  the  new 
regime  had  crushed  the  lives  of  many  whom  she 
loved  ;  she  had  been  forced  to  stifle  her  purest  con- 
victions and  to  turn  away  from  the  falling  fortunes 
which  she  had  no  power  to  save.  It  was  only  a  joy 
to  lay  down  the  burden  of  her  fifty-seven  years, 
surrounded  by  the  few  who  were  left  to  her.  She 
ordered  a  simple  burial,  such  as  was  given  to  the 
sisters  in  the  convent.  There  was  no  memorial, 
and,  strange  to  say,  no  one  knows  where  she 
lies. 

No  woman  better  refutes  the  theory  that  know- 
ledge makes  pedants,  that  the  gentler  qualities  fade 
before  the  cold  light  of  the  intellect.  To  a  vigor- 
ous, versatile  mind,  and  the  calm  courage  of  her 
convictions,  Vittoria  Colonna  united  a  tender  heart, 
fine  sensibilities,  and  broad  sympathies.  Her  clear 
judgment  was  tempered  by  a  winning  sweetness. 
The  age  of  specialties  was  still  in  the  distance,  and 
the  woman  was  superior  to  any  of  her  achievements. 
In  a  period  that  was  notably  lax  in  morals,  she 
carried  herself  among  crowds  of  adorers  with  such 
gentle  dignity  that  no  cloud  ever  shadowed  her  fair 
fame.  With  this  rare  harmony  of  intellect,  heart, 
and  character,  she  held  the  essentials  of  life  above 
all  its  decorations ;  but  she  retained  to  the  end  the 
simple  graces,  the  flexible  tact,  and  the  stately  man- 
ners of  the  grande  dame. 

This  literary  woman,  great   lady,  and  devote  of 

285 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

centuries  ago  belongs  to  a  type  that  is  out  of  fash- 
ion to-day;  it  was  not  common  even  then.  She 
was  the  perfected  fruit  of  the  finest  spirit  of  her  time. 
She  did  not  write  for  money  or  fame ;  she  sought 
neither  honors  nor  society  nor  worldly  pleasures, 
though  she  was  a  social  queen  by  right  of  inheri- 
tance. She  loved  high  things  for  their  own  sake 
and  because  she  was  akin  to  them.  She  loved  her 
friends,  too,  for  what  they  were,  not  for  what  they 
brought  her,  and  gave  them  of  her  best,  even  to  her 
own  hurt.  If  she  tried  to  reconcile  her  beliefs  and 
her  environment,  it  was  a  fault  of  sanity  and  loy- 
alty ;  to  break  with  her  church  traditions  was  to 
lose  her  influence  and  gain  nothing.  Possibly  this 
is  not  the  spirit  of  a  reformer,  but  it  is  the  spirit  of 
those  who  trust  to  the  saving  quality  of  light  rather 
than  of  heat.  No  doubt  the  conflict  helped  to  wear 
out  her  waning  forces.  In  this  restless  age  the 
world  praises  such  women  from  afar.  They  appeal 
to  it  as  do  the  pictures  of  Raphael  and  Fra  An- 
gelico,  which  we  are  quite  ready  to  adore  as  they 
hang  in  gallery  or  drawing-room,  for  some  subtle 
quality  of  beauty  consecrated  by  the  homage  of 
centuries,  though  their  underlying  significance  we 
may  have  long  outgrown.  If  they  are  seen  at  rare 
intervals  in  real  life,  we  give  them  a  certain  tribute 
of  admiration,  no  doubt,  but  we  are  apt  to  speak  of 
them  personally  as  visionary,  antiquated,  or  other- 
worldly. The  lofty  sentiment,  the  stateliness,  the 
286 


OF   THE    RENAISSANCE 

repose,  the  indefinable  distinction,  are  not  in  the  line 
of  modern  ideals. 

VII 

IT  is  worthy  of  note  that  in  an  age  which  was  es- 
sentially devoted  to  beauty  and  a  glorification  of 
the  senses,  women  almost  invariably  wrote  on  sa- 
cred or  ethical  themes.  Even  love  they  trans- 
figured into  something  divine.  The  first-fruits  of 
their  intelligence  were  offered  on  the  shrine  of  a 
purer  morality.  As  a  rule,  too,  they  were  women 
of  serious  tastes  and  conspicuous  virtues. 

There  was  one  poet,  however,  of  some  note  who 
may  be  mentioned  as  an  exception  to  the  consis- 
tently high  character  of  the  literary  women  of  a 
notably  wicked  period ;  but  even  her  poems  were 
largely  religious  in  tone.  Tullia  d' Aragona,  who  dis- 
cussed affairs  in  Latin  and  wrote  Greek  when  a  child, 
was  a  wit,  a  genius,  and  a  brilliant  woman.  She  had 
a  bad  father,  though  he  was  a  cardinal,  and  a 
mother  who  was  beautiful  but  is  not  plainly  visible 
at  this  distance.  The  clever  Tullia,  who  had  a 
questionable  salon  at  Rome,  with  plenty  of  cardinals 
and  princes  in  her  train,  carried  with  her  to  other 
courts  a  certain  prestige  which  they  did  not  scruti- 
nize too  closely,  and  she  fascinated  many  men  who 
were  not  quite  equal  to  the  moral  and  intellectual 
altitude  of  a  Vittoria  Colonna  or  an  Olympia  Morata. 
"  Vittoria  is  a  moon,  Tullia  a  sun,"  said  an  enthu- 

287 


THE    LEARNED    WOMEN 

siastic  admirer  and  fellow-poet.  But  in  the  waning 
of  her  charms  she  turned  seriously  to  literature,  and 
wrote  a  poem  of  thirty  thousand  lines,  besides  a 
curious  dialogue  on  "The  Infinity  of  Love,"  and 
many  sonnets.  At  this  time  in  her  life,  which 
verged  toward  the  twilight,  she  had  put  off  frivo- 
lous things  and  was  disposed  to  moralize.  In  the 
preface  to  her  poem  she  says  that  reading  is  a 
resource  for  women  when  everything  else  fails ; 
but  she  mourns  over  the  fact  that  Boccaccio,  who 
claimed  to  write  for  them,  said  so  many  things  not 
fit  to  be  read ;  that  even  Ariosto  was  not  above 
reproach ;  and  closes  by  declaring  that  she  has  not 
put  down  a  word  that  might  not  be  read  by  "  maiden, 
nun,  or  widow  at  any  hour" — all  of  which  goes  to 
show  the  final  tendency  of  women  toward  moral 
ideals,  in  spite  of  the  entanglements  of  very  mundane 
surroundings.  They  take  refuge  in  charity  and  re- 
ligion from  a  world  that  has  ceased  to  charm,  as 
men  do  in  cynicism  and  stimulants. 

This  versatile  poet  of  more  esprit  than  decorum 
had  a  great  deal  of  incense  offered  her,  and  in  the 
end  won  even  the  patronage  of  the  grave,  virtuous, 
and  sorrowful  Eleanor  of  Toledo,  but  she  died  in 
penitence  and  misery.  As  she  lived  and  shone  in 
the  most  dissolute  society  of  her  day,  and  was 
trained  from  childhood  with  special  reference  to 
pleasing  men  of  brilliant  position  and  gifts  but 
low  morals,  she  by  no  means  fitly  represents  the 

288 


OF    THE    RENAISSANCE 

learned  women  of  Italy,  whether  of  court  or  uni- 
versity. She  belonged  to  a  class  apart.  We  lift 
our  eyes  at  the  laxity  of  a  society  which  could  re- 
ceive and  smile  upon  her,  but  we  have  not  far  to 
go  to  find  the  same  complaisance  even  in  a  period 
that  prides  itself  on  its  superior  morals.  Our  cen- 
sor of  the  twenty-fifth  century  may  find  here  a  text 
for  a  sermon  on  the  wickedness  of  the  scientific  age, 
which  he  will  otherwise  prove  by  copious  quotations 
from  the  glaring  headlines  of  our  daily  journals. 

So  far  as  appears,  in  an  age  when  no  man's  life 
was  secure  and  no  woman's  honor  was  quite  safe, 
when  men  in  power  did  not  scruple  to  send  those 
who  were  in  their  way  out  of  the  world,  atoning  for 
it,  if  it  needed  atonement,  at  least  celebrating  it, 
by  a  grand  Te  Deum,  or  a  De  Profundis, — which 
seems  more  suitable  though  less  cheerful, — it  was  the 
women  of  the  highest  intelligence  who  held  the  bal- 
ance of  humanity  and  morals.  There  were  wicked 
ones,  no  doubt,  in  abundance,  as  the  more  facile  and 
helpless  sex  was  not  free  from  the  subtle  influence 
of  the  spirit  of  the  age  against  which  good  men  with 
all  their  vaunted  strength  struggled  in  vain.  But  it 
can  hardly  be  disputed  that  the  virtues  and  graces 
of  character  blossomed  in  the  most  significant  pro- 
fusion among  women  of  distinctly  scholarly  tastes, 
who  found  in  the  pleasures  of  the  intellect  an  unfail- 
ing resource  against  the  vices  as  well  as  the  sorrows 
and  disappointments  of  a  bad  and  pitiless  world. 
'9  289 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS    AND 
PLATONIC    LOVE 


THE   LITERARY   COURTS   AND 
PLATONIC    LOVE 


•    Social  Spirit  of  Women    • 

Accomplished  Princesses    •   Their  Executive  Ability 

•    Caterina  Sforza    •    Patrons  of  Letters    • 

•    Court  of  Urbino    • 

•  Duchess  Elisabetta    •    Count  Castiglione   • 

•    Record  of  Conversations    •    Qualities  of  a  Lady   • 
•    A  Medici  Champion  of  Women   • 

•  Platonic  Love    •    Court  of  Ferrara    • 

•  Boiardo    •    Ariosto    •    Duchess  Leonora    • 

•  Lucrezia  Borgia   •    Renee   •   Tasso's  Leonora  • 

•  Court  of  Mantua   •    Isabella  d'Este    • 

•  Court  of  Milan    •    Beatrice  d'Este   • 

•  Moral  and  Intellectual  Value  of  Women  of  the 

Renaissance    • 
•    From  Court  to  Literary  Salon   « 


THE   LITERARY   COURTS   AND 
PLATONIC   LOVE 


I 


E  have  heard  of  a  man  who,  after 
writing  two  hundred  volumes  or  so 
on  various  learned  subjects,  added 
a  "Eulogy  of  Silence."  Among  other 
curious  things,  he  said  that  he  was 
"  never  more  with  those  he  loved  than  when  alone." 
Men  have  sometimes  been  known  to  prefer  society 
in  this  form,  but  women  rarely ;  they  like  things  in 
the  concrete,  and  they  like  to  talk  about  them. 
They  may  turn  to  a  life  of  the  spirit,  but  even  this 
they  do  not  care  to  live  in  solitude.  There  are 
few  anchorets  among  them.  In  their  exaltation, 
as  in  their  pursuit  of  knowledge,  they  seek  com- 
panionship. 

Just  how  much  women  had  to  do  with  awaken- 
ing the  world  from  its  long  sleep  we  do  not  know, 
but  they  were  very  active  in  keeping  it  awake  after 

293 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

it  began  to  open  its  eyes.  They  mastered  old 
languages,  studied  old  manuscripts,  held  public 
discussions  on  classic  themes,  wrote  verses,  and 
entered  with  enthusiasm  into  the  search  for  records 
that  had  been  lying  in  the  dust  for  a  thousand 
years.  But  they  did  more  than  this :  they  revived 
the  art  of  conversation  and  created  society  anew. 
Possibly  this  was  the  most  distinct  heritage  they 
left  to  the  coming  ages. 

If  conversation  did  not  reach  its  maturity  in 
Italy,  it  had  its  brilliant  youth  there.  Later  it  was 
taken  up  in  France,  spiced  with  Gallic  wit,  and 
raised  to  the  dignity  of  a  fine  art ;  but  it  lost  a  little 
of  its  first  seriousness.  The  accomplished  princesses 
of  the  Renaissance,  who  raved  over  a  new-found 
line  of  Plato  or  Socrates,  and  expatiated  on  the 
merits  of  a  long-buried  statue  they  had  helped  to 
unearth,  recalled  the  famous  circle  of  Aspasia  and 
made  social  centers  of  their  own.  But  they  added  a 
fresh  and  original  flavor.  One  does  not  copy  accu- 
rately after  fifteen  or  twenty  centuries,  nor  even 
after  two  or  three ;  but  we  are  safe  in  thinking 
that  these  groups  of  poets,  statesmen,  prelates, 
artists,  wits,  and  litterateurs,  who  discussed  the 
new  life  and  thought,  were  not  far  behind  their 
model  in  brilliancy.  If  the  men  were  not  so  great, 
the  world  was  older,  the  field  of  knowledge  was 
wider,  and  there  was  more  to  talk  about.  Then, 
there  was  but  one  Aspasia.  If  there  were  lesser 

294 


AND    PLATONIC   LOVE 

stars  of  her  own  sex,  we  do  not  know  who  they 
were.  It  was  a  brave  woman,  whatever  her  abili- 
ties may  have  been,  if  she  had  a  reputation  to 
lose,  that  would  show  her  face  in  the  society  of 
those  grand  old  Greeks  who  claimed  the  universe 
for  themselves  and  made  of  her  an  insignificant 
vassal.  But  there  was  a  multitude  of  women,  both 
clever  and  learned,  who  added  life  and  piquancy  to 
the  coteries  of  the  Renaissance.  Men  were  proud 
of  the  versatile  wives  and  daughters  who  made 
their  courts  centers  of  light  and  learning;  if  they 
were  without  lettered  tastes  themselves,  they  were 
glad  of  the  reflected  glory.  So,  naturally,  it  was 
the  ambition  of  every  well-born  girl  to  fit  herself 
to  shine  in  these  brilliant  circles,  and  every  father 
who  had  a  daughter  of  talent  was  conscious  of  pos- 
sessing a  treasure  of  great  value  upon  which  too 
much  care  could  not  be  lavished. 

It  must  not  be  thought,  however,  that  the  women 
who  made  their  courts  so  famous  were  simply  dev- 
otees of  fashion,  or  the  pretty  toys  of  men's  ca- 
prices, any  more  than  they  were  colorless  saints  of 
the  household  or  cloister.  They  were  not  without 
high  domestic  and  womanly  virtues,  but  they  had 
also  intelligence,  a  grasp  of  affairs,  masterly  char- 
acter, and  the  tact  to  make  all  these  qualities  avail- 
able for  the  good  of  their  families  and  society. 
They  were  versed  not  only  in  classic  lore,  but  in 
the  art  of  living.  It  was  not  weakness  that  consti- 

295 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

tuted  their  charm ;  it  was  their  symmetry  and  the 
fullness  of  their  strength. 

As  we  have  already  seen,  it  was  an  age  of  edu- 
cated women.  A  lady  was  expected  to  understand 
Latin,  at  least,  besides  her  own  language,  and  Greek 
was  a  common  acquirement.  The  earliest  Greek 
grammar  was  written  by  the  celebrated  Lascaris 
for  Ippolita  Sforza,  the  wife  of  Alfonso  and  a 
ruling  spirit  at  the  lettered  court  of  Naples.  In 
her  precocious  childhood  this  brilliant  princess 
made  a  collection  of  Latin  apothegms,  and  a  trans- 
lation of  Cicero's  "  De  Senectute,"  which  is  said  to 
be  still  preserved  in  a  convent  at  Rome.  Plato, 
Seneca,  and  other  philosophers  supplied  the  great 
ladies  of  four  centuries  ago  with  moral  nutriment, 
and  Cicero  was  studied  as  a  model  of  style.  "With 
the  exception  of  Vergil  and  parts  of  Horace,  the 
Latin  poets  were  too  coarse,  and  Boccaccio  was 
forbidden ;  but  Dante  was  a  favorite  companion  of 
leisure  hours,  and  Petrarch,  the  high  priest  of  Pla- 
tonism,  an  idol.  The  "  Lives  of  the  Fathers  "  and 
the  chronicles  of  the  saints  were  antidotes  to  the 
worldliness  of  poets  and  historians.  It  was  under- 
stood, however,  that  literary  tastes  must  not  inter- 
fere with  prayers  and  an  intelligent  oversight  of 
the  household. 

Of  their  talent  for  administration  these  versatile 
princesses  gave  ample  evidence.  They  were  con- 
stantly called  upon  to  hold  the  reins  of  govern- 

396 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

ment  when  their  husbands  were  absent,  and  ruled 
with  great  wisdom  and  skill.  We  do  not  hear  that 
they  talked  much  of  their  ability  to  do  various 
things  not  usually  included  among  a  woman's  duties, 
but  they  did  them  at  need  as  a  matter  of  course. 
In  affairs  of  delicate  diplomacy  they  were  of  special 
value,  also  in  questions  pertaining  to  morals.  It  is 
interesting  to  know  that  this  quarrelsome  period 
had  its  peace  societies,  as  well  as  our  own,  and 
that  the  Pacieri,  which  was  organized  to  prevent 
litigation,  was  made  up  of  men  and  women.  Ve- 
ronica Gambara  used  her  influence  and  her  pen  in 
the  interest  of  peace,  also  Vittoria  Colonna,  and 
many  others. 

Some  of  the  women  who  ruled  so  ably,  however, 
were  of  virile  temper,  and  threw  themselves  with 
passionate  energy  into  the  storm  and  stress  of 
affairs,  though  it  was  rarely,  if  ever,  from  choice. 
In  an  emergency  they  could  ride  fearlessly  to  the 
field  of  battle,  or  address  a  foreign  council.  It  was 
to  save  her  children's  heritage  that  Caterina  Sforza 
defended  the  rocky  fortress  of  Forli  after  the  vio- 
lent death  of  her  husband.  She  was  a  picturesque 
figure,  this  imposing  lady  of  fair  face,  golden  hair, 
indomitable  spirit,  and  fiery  temper,  as  accomplished 
as  she  was  beautiful  and  brave,  who  rode  at  the 
head  of  her  troops,  and  graciously  smiled  upon  the 
people,  who  loved  her  and  were  ready  to  die  for 
her.  As  a  lovely  bride  of  fifteen  she  had  made  a 
297 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

triumphal  entry  into  Rome,  where  she  lived  like  a 
queen,  and  literally  controlled  the  fate  of  every  one 
who  sought  aid,  promotion,  or  a  place  of  her 
uncle,  the  formidable  Sixtus  IV,  but  she  was  des- 
tined to  come  to  the  front  in  many  a  stormy  crisis. 
She  was  only  twenty-two  when  the  Pope  died  sud- 
denly, but  she  took  prompt  possession  of  the  castle 
of  St.  Angelo  in  the  name  of  her  absent  husband, 
who  was  Commander  of  the  Forces,  and  found  there 
an  asylum  for  her  children  until  she  could  make 
terms  that  saved  the  family  fortunes.  No  wonder 
the  husband  took  her  with  him  when  he  went  to 
Venice,  that  he  might  avail  himself  of  her  swift 
and  clear  judgment  in  his  delicate  negotiations. 

The  history  of  this  fifteenth-century  heroine 
reads  like  the  most  improbable  romance.  With  the 
daring  of  a  man,  she  had  the  flexibility  of  a  woman. 
If  she  could  hold  her  own  against  an  army  and 
crush  an  enemy  with  inexorable  decision,  she  could 
care  for  the  wounded  like  a  nurse.  She  danced  as 
vigorously  as  she  ruled,  and  did  not  disdain  the 
arts  of  a  coquette  or  a  diplomatist.  One  and  the 
most  obscure  of  her  three  husbands  she  loved,  but 
the  others  she  served  well.  Of  fear  she  was  inca- 
pable. "  I  am  used  to  grief ;  I  am  not  afraid  of  it," 
she  wrote  to  her  son  from  the  solitary  cell  at  Rome, 
where  she  was  caged  for  a  time  by  the  terrible 
Borgia  Pope  in  the  fortress  over  which  she  had 
once  ruled.  But  the  careful,  devoted  mother,  who 

298 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

was  so  full  of  energy,  so  generous  to  her  friends, 
so  courageous  in  war,  so  subtle  in  diplomacy,  so 
dignified  in  misfortune,  turned  in  her  last  years  to 
spiritual  things  with  the  same  ardor  she  had  given 
to  mundane  ones.  She  had  lived  her  life,  and  re- 
tired from  its  storms  at  thirty-nine.  Then  she 
gave  herself  to  the  austerities  of  a  convent  at 
Florence,  still  directing  the  education  of  her  young 
children.  If  we  do  not  approve  of  all  the  methods 
of  this  irrepressible  woman  of  clear  head  and 
strong  heart,  we  have  to  judge  her  by  the  stan- 
dards of  an  age  in  which  the  directors  of  the 
world's  conscience  scoffed  at  morality  and  gave  the 
prizes  of  life  to  libertines  and  assassins.  I  quote 
her  as  one  out  of  many,  to  show  the  firm  quality 
and  abounding  vitality  as  well  as  the  solid  attain- 
ments of  the  women  of  this  remarkable  period. 

But  the  special  mission  of  these  princesses,  so 
valiant  on  occasion,  was  to  patronize  learning  and 
the  arts,  to  aid  men  of  letters,  to  diffuse  a  taste  for 
the  beautiful,  to  put  a- curb  on  license,  so  far  as  this 
was  possible,  and  to  foster  discussions  of  things 
high  and  serious.  They  vied  with  one  another  in 
making  their  courts  intellectually  luminous.  The 
more  we  study  them,  the  more  we  are  convinced  of 
the  beneficent  influence  of  thoroughly  trained,  broad- 
minded  women  in  molding  the  destinies  of  nations  as 
well  as  of  individuals.  We  are  fascinated  by  their 
variable  charm,  their  mastery  of  life  in  its  larger  as 

299 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

well  as  its  smaller  phases.  The  woman  who  led  all 
hearts  captive  with  her  beauty,  her  gaiety,  her 
kindness,  the  faithful  wife,  the  tender  mother,  the 
sympathetic  friend,  was  also  the  woman  of  lucid 
intellect  and  strong  soul,  who  sustained  her  husband 
in  his  darkest  hours  and  added  laurels  to  his  glory 
while  winning  some  for  herself. 

II 

OF  the  Italian  courts,  it  was  only  those  led  by  able 
women  that  left  a  permanent  fame.  If  they  are 
associated  with  the  names  of  great  men  who  gave 
them  the  halo  of  their  own  glory,  it  was  women 
who  made  a  society  for  these  men,  inspired  them,  and 
centralized  their  influence.  Urbino  was  called  the 
Athens  of  Italy.  During  the  reign  of  the  Duchess 
Elisabetta  it  is  safe  to  say  that  there  was  hardly  a 
man  of  distinction  in  the  country,  whether  poet, 
artist,  prelate,  or  statesman,  who  did  not  find  his 
way  there  sooner  or  later.  It  may  be  pleasant  to 
dwell  a  little  on  this  brilliant  court,  which  was  the 
best  and  purest  of  its  time  and  furnished  the 
model  upon  which  the  Hotel  de  Rambouillet 
was  founded  more  than  a  century  afterward.  It 
was  more  fortunate  than  others  in  having  a  chron- 
icler. Count  Castiglione  left  a  graphic  picture  of 
its  personnel  and  amusements,  as  well  as  a  record 
of  some  of  its  conversations,  so  that  we  know  not 

300 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

only  the  quality  of  the  people  who  met  there,  but 
what  they  thought,  what  they  talked  about,  and 
what  they  did.  He  gives  us  the  best  glimpse  we 
have  of  the  society  and  manners  of  the  golden  age 
of  the  Renaissance. 

But  this  atmosphere  of  culture  and  refinement 
was  not  made  in  a  day.  It  was  largely  due  to  the 
more  or  less  gifted  princesses  who  had  lived  or 
ruled  there  for  more  than  a  hundred  years.  Far 
back  toward  the  beginning  of  the  fifteenth  century 
there  was  a  Battista  who  was  distinguished  for  her 
piety,  her  talents,  and  her  noble  character.  A 
worthless  husband  drove  her  to  seek  refuge  with 
her  brother  at  Urbino,  where  she  solaced  the  wounds 
of  her  heart  in  writing  sonnets  and  moral  essays  on 
faith  and  human  frailty,  also  in  corresponding  with 
scholars  and  sending  Latin  letters  to  her  father-in- 
law,  a  Malatesta,  who  had  fostered  her  literary  tastes 
and  evidently  remained  her  friend.  Her  daughter 
inherited  her  sorrows  with  her  talents,  and  both 
closed  their  lives,  after  the  fashion  of  women 
to  whom  the  world  has  not  been  kind  or  has 
lost  its  charm,  in  the  austerities  of  a  convent. 
Her  granddaughter  was  Costanza  Varana,  a  valued 
friend  of  philosophers  and  men  of  learning;  but 
she  died  early,  leaving  another  Battista,  who  was 
sent  to  Milan  at  four  to  be  educated  with  her 
precocious  cousin  Ippolita  Sforza.  The  extraor- 
dinary gifts  of  this  child  have  already  been  men- 

301 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

tioned,  but  she  more  than  fulfilled  her  promise.  At 
fifteen,  or  earlier,  she  was  married  to  Federigo,  the 
great  Duke  of  Urbino,  who  shared  the  enthusiasm 
of  the  Medici  in  the  revival  of  the  classics.  This 
small  duchess  of  vigorous  intellect,  much  learning, 
and  strong  character,  was  in  full  sympathy  with 
her  husband's  tastes,  and  he  speaks  of  her  as  "  the 
ornament  of  his  house,  the  delight  of  his  public  and 
private  hours."  If  she  could  read  Demosthenes 
and  Plato,  and  talk  with  the  wisdom  of  Cicero,  as 
one  of  her  contemporaries  tells  us,  she  was  not 
spoiled  for  the  practical  duties  of  her  position.  At 
an  age  when  our  school- girls  are  playing  golf  or 
conning  their  lessons,  she  was  prudently  managing 
affairs  of  the  State  of  which  she  was  regent  in  her 
husband's  absence.  She  was  simple  in  manners, 
cared  little  for  dress,  and  put  on  her  magnificent 
robes  only  for  courtly  ceremonies  to  maintain 
the  outward  dignity  of  her  place.  At  Rome  she 
was  greatly  honored  by  the  Pope,  whom  she  ad- 
dressed in  Latin,  much  to  his  delight.  But  this 
beautiful,  gifted,  efficient,  and  adored  woman  died 
at  twenty-six,  leaving  seven  children,  a  broken- 
hearted husband,  and  a  sorrowing  people.  The 
glories  of  her  short,  full  life  were  sung  by  poets, 
statesmen,  and  churchmen  alike.  She  left  the  im- 
perishable stamp  of  intellect  and  taste  on  all  her 
surroundings,  and  is  of  special  interest  to  us  as 
the  grandmother  of  Vittoria  Colonna,  in  whom 

302 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

the  talent  of  generations  found  its  consummate 
flower. 

But  the  luminous  period  of  Urbino  was  during 
the  reign  of  her  son,  who  added  to  the  martial  qual- 
ities and  manly  accomplishments  of  his  age,  remark- 
able talent,  great  learning,  and  a  singularly  gentle 
character.  This  was  the  Duke  Guidobaldo,  who 
consoled  his  friends  in  his  last  moments  with  lines 
from  Vergil.  His  health  was  always  delicate,  and 
the  brilliancy  of  his  court  was  due  to  his  wife,  the 
celebrated  Elisabetta  Gonzaga,  who  had  been 
reared  in  the  scholarly  air  of  Mantua,  where  the 
daughters  were  educated  with  the  sons.  She  found 
in  her  new  home  standards  of  culture  that  had 
been  set,  as  we  have  seen,  by  a  long  line  of  prin- 
cesses devoted  to  things  of  the  intellect. 

In  its  palmy  days,  the  young  Giuliano  de'  Med- 
ici, son  of  the  great  Lorenzo  and  brother  of  Leo  X, 
— the  one  who  was  immortalized  by  Michelangelo  in 
the  statue  so  familiar  to  the  traveler  in  the  Medi- 
cean  Chapel  at  Florence, — was  living  at  Urbino  dur- 
ing the  exile  of  his  family.  It  was  also  the  home 
of  the  "  divine  Bembo,"  critic,  Platonist,  arbiter  of 
letters,  finally  cardinal,  and  one  of  the  most  famous 
men  of  his  time,  though  his  claim  to  be  called 
"  divine  "  is  not  apparent.  The  witty  Maecenas  of 
this  group  was  Bibbiena,  poet,  diplomat,  man  of  the 
world,  a  dilettante  in  taste  and  an  Epicurean  in 
philosophy,  also  a  cardinal  and  an  aspirant  for  the 

303 


THE    LITERARY   COURTS 

papal  throne.  There  were,  too,  the  Fregosos,  men 
of  strong  intellect,  many  personal  attractions,  and 
manly  character,  one  of  whom  became  the  Doge 
of  Genoa,  and  the  other  a  cardinal — with  many 
others  of  fame  and  learning  whose  names  signify 
little  to  us  to-day.  By  no  means  the  least  impor- 
tant member  of  the  household  was  Castiglione,  the 
courtier  and  diplomat  of  classical  tastes  and  varied 
accomplishments,  who  has  given  us  so  pleasant  a 
glimpse  of  its  sayings  and  doings.  To  this  intel- 
lectual Mecca  came,  from  time  to  time,  literary  pil- 
grims from  all  parts  of  the  world. 

It  was  the  special  mission  of  the  Duchess  Elisa- 
betta  to  fuse  these  elements  into  a  society  that 
should  be  a  model  for  other  courts  and  coming 
generations.  Here  lies  her  originality  and  her 
claim  to  distinction.  This  clever  princess,  who 
loved  her  husband  devotedly,  cared  for  the  poor 
and  sorrowing  among  her  people,  and  had  moral 
convictions  of  her  own  as  well  as  ideas,  was  well 
fitted  for  her  position.  Without  any  pretension  to 
genius,  she  had  a  clear,  discriminating  mind,  rare 
intelligence,  great  beauty,  and  gracious  manners. 
Her  character  had  a  fine  symmetry,  and  she  was 
equally  successful  in  directing  her  household,  con- 
versing with  great  men,  and  holding  the  reins  of 
government  when  her  husband — a  condottiere  by 
profession,  like  most  of  the  smaller  princes — was 
in  the  field  elsewhere.  Surrounded  by  adorers 

304 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

in  an  age  when  indiscretions,  even  sins,  were  easily 
forgiven,  no  breath  of  censure  ever  touched  her 
fair  name.  Her  dignity  and  a  reserve  that  verged 
upon  coldness  gave  a  pure  tone  to  her  court.  She 
permitted  neither  malicious  gossip  nor  heated  talk, 
and  required  unsullied  honor  and  exemplary  conduct 
of  her  friends.  We  might  question  the  standards  a 
little,  as  men  at  least  were  privileged  beings  not  to 
be  too  closely  scrutinized. 

In  her  social  duties  she  had  the  efficient  aid  of 
Emilia  Pia,  the  duke's  sister-in-law,  a  woman  of 
brilliant  intellect  and  high  character,  who  had  lost 
her  husband  in  youth,  and  lived  at  Urbino.  Of  a 
gayer  turn,  her  ready  wit  and  happy  temperament, 
added  to  her  knowledge  and  personal  fascination, 
made  her  the  life  of  the  house.  Other  and  younger 
ladies  of  well-known  names  and  kindred  tastes  figure 
in  its  diversions. 

The  magnificent  old  palace  that  overlooked  the 
city  from  its  picturesque  site  among  the  hills  was 
one  of  the  finest  in  Italy.  Its  stately  rooms  were 
filled  with  rare  treasures  of  painting,  sculpture, 
mosaic,  and  costly  furniture.  There  were  exquisite 
decorations  in  marble  and  tarsia,  and  the  walls  were 
draped  with  rich  tapestries.  Raphael  was  a  youth 
then,  and  no.  doubt  his  first  dreams  had  been  of 
these  beautiful  things,  among  which  he  must  have 
rambled.  It  is  likely,  too,  that  he  met  here  the 
friends  who  were  of  so  much  service  to  him  after- 

305 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

ward  at  Rome,  among  them  Bibbiena,  to  whose 
grandniece  he  was  betrothed.  His  father  had 
painted  some  of  the  frescos,  and  was  a  welcome 
visitor.  Other  artists  were  invited  there,  and  added 
to  the  glories  of  the  famous  pile.  Among  these  sur- 
roundings of  art  and  beauty,  with  the  traditions  of 
culture  that  lay  behind  them,  clever,  thoughtful 
women  and  brilliant  men  met  evening  after  evening 
to  talk  of  the  world  and  its  affairs,  of  things  light 
and  serious,  of  love,  manners,  literature,  statecraft, 
and  philosophy.  When  they  tired  of  grave  themes, 
they  amused  themselves  with  allegories,  playful 
badinage,  witty  repartees,  and  devices  of  all  sorts  to 
stimulate  the  intellect.  After  supper  there  was 
music  and  dancing,  if  the  conversation  did  not  last 
until  the  morning  hours.  Sometimes  they  had  their 
own  plays  acted  in  the  pretty  little  theater.  It  was 
here  that  Bibbiena's  famous  comedy,  "  Calandra," 
with  its  gorgeous  pagan  setting  and  its  curious 
blending  of  love  and  mythology,  of  nymphs,  Cu- 
pids, and  goddesses,  was  first  given  to  an  admiring 
world. 

But  we  are  most  interested  to-day  in  the  con- 
versations. Many  evenings  were  devoted  to  defin- 
ing the  character  and  duties  of  a  courtier,  which 
differed  little  from  those  of  a  modern  gentleman, 
except  in  the  exaggerated  deference  claimed  to  be 
due  to  a  superior  and  verging  upon  servility.  It 
is  more  to  the  purpose  here  to  touch  upon  the 

306 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

discussions  relating  to  women,  as  they  furnish  a 
key  to  fifteenth-century  manners  which  were  the 
basis  of  all  modern  codes,  though  to-day  many  of 
the  best  of  their  formulas  are  more  conspicuous  in 
the  breach  than  in  the  observance. 

It  was  agreed  that  a  lady  must  be  gracious, 
affable,  discreet,  of  character  above  reproach,  free 
from  pride  or  envy,  and  neither  vain,  contentious, 
nor  arrogant.  To  speak  of  the  failings  of  others,  or 
listen  to  reflections  upon  them,  was  taken  as  an 
indication  that  one's  own  follies  needed  a  vindica- 
tion or  a  veil.  This  model  lady  must  dress  with 
taste,  but  not  think  too  much  about  it,  and  she 
was  forbidden  to  dye  her  hair,  or  use  cosmetics 
and  other  artificial  aids  to  beauty.  Her  personal 
distinction  lay  in  an  elegant  simplicity,  without 
luxury  or  pretension.  She  must  know  how  to 
manage  her  children  and  her  fortune,  as  well  as  her 
household ;  but  she  was  expected  to  be  versed  in 
letters,  music,  and  the  arts,  also  to  be  able  to  con- 
verse on  any  topic  of  the  day  without  childish  af- 
fectation of  knowledge  which  she  did  not  possess. 
Modesty,  tact,  decorum,  and  purity  of  thought 
were  cardinal  virtues,  and  religion  was  a  matter  of 
course.  Noisy  manners,  egotism,  and  familiarity 
were  unpardonable.  Dignity,  self-possession,  and 
a  gentle  urbanity  were  marks  of  good  breeding. 
No  license  in  language  was  permitted,  but  we  can- 
not help  wondering  what  they  called  license.  Men, 

307 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

it  must  be  added,  could  be  about  as  wicked  as  they 
liked,  and,  if  history  is  to  be  trusted,  many  in  high 
places  were  very  wicked  indeed.  The  latitude  of 
the  best  of  them  in  speech  would  be  rather  embar- 
rassing to  the  sensitive  woman  of  our  time ;  but  the 
days  of  the  precieuses  had  not  dawned,  and  no  one 
hesitated  to  call  a  spade  a  spade,  even  if  it  were  a 
very  black  one.  Women  might  blush  and  be 
silent,  but  further  protest  was  set  down  as  dis- 
agreeable prudery.  Perhaps  the  frank  naturalism 
of  the  Latin  races  must  be  taken  into  account,  as 
it  often  quite  unconsciously  shocks  our  own  more 
delicate  tastes  even  to-day.  But  it  was  conceded 
that  no  man  was  so  bad  as  not  to  esteem  a  woman 
of  pure  character  and  refined  sensibilities. 

These  men  and  women  who  lived  on  the  con- 
fines of  two  great  centuries  and  tried  to  introduce 
a  finer  code  of  manners  and  morals,  touched  also 
on  the  equality  of  the  sexes,  a  question  which 
agitated  that  world  as  it  does  our  own.  Some  one 
asks,  one  evening,  why  women  should  not  be  per- 
mitted to  govern  cities,  make  laws,  and  command 
armies. 

Giuliano  de'  Medici,  who  was  an  ardent  champion 
of  the  dependent  sex,  replies  that  it  might  not  be 
amiss.  Many  of  them  he  declares  to  be  as  capable 
of  doing  these  things  as  men,  and  he  cites  history 
to  show  that  they  have  led  armies  and  governed 
with  equal  prudence.  To  a  friend  who  mildly  sug- 

308 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

gests  that  women  are  inferior,  he  says  that  "  the 
difference  is  accidental,  not  essential,"  adding  that 
the  qualities  of  strength,  activity,  and  endurance 
are  not  always  most  esteemed,  even  in  men.  As  to 
mind,  "  whatever  men  can  know  and  understand, 
women  can  also;  where  one  intellect  penetrates, 
so  does  the  other.  .  .  .  Many  have  been  learned  in 
philosophy,  written  poetry,  practised  law,  and 
spoken  with  eloquence." 

A  gentleman  of  the  party  ungallantly  remarks 
that  women  desire  to  be  men  so  as  to  be  more 
perfect. 

Giuliano  wisely  answers  that  it  is  not  for  perfec- 
tion, but  for  liberty  to  shake  off  the  power  that 
men  assume  over  them.  He  says  they  are  more 
firm  and  constant  in  affection,  as  men  are  apt  to  be 
wandering  and  unsettled.  When  asked  to  name 
women  who  are  equal  to  men,  he  replies  that  he  is 
confounded  by  numbers,  but  mentions,  among 
others,  "  Portia,  Cornelia,  and  Nicostrata,  mother  of 
Evander,  who  taught  the  Latins  the  use  of  letters." 
"  Rome,"  he  adds,  "  owes  its  greatness  as  much  to 
women  as  to  men.  .  .  .  They  were  never  in  any  age 
inferior,  nor  are  they  now."  He  goes  on  to  cite 
Countess  Matilda,  Anne  of  France,  wife  of  two 
kings  in  succession,  and  inferior  to  neither,  Mar- 
guerite, daughter  of  Maximilian,  famed  for  pru- 
dence and  justice,  Isabella  of  Mantua,  singularly 
great  and  virtuous,  with  many  other  noted  women 

309 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

of  his  time.  "  If  there  are  Cleopatras,  there  are 
multitudes  of  Sardanapali  who  are  much  worse." 

The  limits  of  this  paper  permit  only  the  sugges- 
tion of  a  few  points  in  a  long  conversation  which 
touched  the  subject  on  every  side.  It  was  inter- 
spersed with  thoughtful  questions  from  the  duchess, 
who  did  not  fail  to  interfere  if  it  took  too  free  a 
turn,  also  with  brilliant  sallies  of  wit  from  Emilia 
Pia,  and  spicy  comments  from  the  less  serious 
members  of  the  party.  They  were  not  all  in  accord 
with  the  opinions  quoted  here,  but,  on  the  whole, 
Giuliano  de'  Medici  and  his  supporters,  who  paid  a 
fine  tribute  to  the  abilities  of  women  without  wish- 
ing to  impose  upon  them  heavier  duties,  had  the 
best  of  the  argument. 

From  men,  women,  and  manners,  the  transi- 
tion to  love  was  an  easy  one,  and  this  fifteenth- 
century  coterie  discussed  it  in  all  its  variations, 
as  we  discuss  the  last  play,  or  the  last  novel, 
or  the  last  word  in  sociology,  or  the  misty  era 
of  universal  peace.  It  was  not  a  new  thing  to 
discourse  upon  the  most  interesting  of  human 
passions.  Men  had  talked  of  it  centuries  before 
on  the  banks  of  the  Ilissus ;  but  when  they  passed 
from  its  lowest  phases  they  lost  themselves  in 
metaphysical  subtleties.  It  became  an  intellec- 
tual aspiration,  a  "  passion  of  the  reason,"  without 
warmth  or  life.  Diotima,  a  woman  quoted  by 
Socrates,  called  it  "  a  mystic  dream  of  the  beautiful 
310 


AND    PLATONIC   LOVE 

and  good" ;  but  if  she  was  not  a  myth  herself,  she 
could  not  join  the  symposia  of  philosophers.  Out- 
side of  the  circle  of  Aspasia,  no  respectable  woman 
was  admitted  to  the  conversations  of  men ;  indeed, 
these  finely  drawn  dissertations  on  love  had  small 
reference  to  her.  In  the  classic  world  women  had 
no  part  in  the  marriage  of  souls.  Love,  when  not 
purely  a  thing  of  the  senses,  was  a  worship  of 
beauty,  and  the  Greek  ideal  of  beauty  was  a  mas- 
culine one.  They  might  die  for  a  Helen,  but  it 
was  not  for  love.  These  wise  talkers  sent  the  flute- 
players  to  amuse  their  wives  and  daughters  in  the 
inner  court,  while  they  considered  high  things,  as 
well  as  many  not  suitable  for  delicate  ears.  The 
coarser  Romans  treated  love  as  altogether  a  thing 
of  the  senses,  with  Ovid  as  a  text. 

But  in  the  golden  age  of  the  Renaissance,  women 
no  longer  stayed  in  the  inner  court,  to  gossip  and 
listen  to  flute-players,  while  their  husbands  talked 
on  themes  high  or  low.  The  worship  of  the  Ma- 
donna, if  it  had  done  little  else,  had  idealized  the 
pure  affection  of  an  exalted  womanhood.  Chivalry 
following  in  its  train  had  made  the  cult  of  woman  a 
fashion  by  giving  her  more  or  less  of  the  homage 
already  paid  to  her  divine  representative,  though  this 
sentiment  was  less  active  in  Italy  than  in  Provence  or 
among  the  more  romantic  races.  It  was  a  tribute 
of  strength  to  helplessness,  and  had  its  roots  in  the 
finest  traits  of  men ;  but  it  exalted  moral  qualities 


THE    LITERARY   COURTS 

rather  than  intellectual  ones,  and  was  largely 
theoretical  outside  of  a  limited  class.  Now  that 
men  had  begun  to  dip  into  classic  lore,  however, 
they  found  a  valuable  ally  in  women,  and  the  old 
cult  became  a  companionship.  To  be  educated  and 
a  princess  was  to  be  doubly  a  power,  to  have  opin- 
ions which  it  was  worth  while  to  consider. 

The  princesses  of  Urbino  had  doubtless  read 
Plato.  In  an  age,  too,  that  occupied  itself  with  Boc- 
caccio, who  had  glorified  the  senses  and  written 
books  that  no  pure  and  refined  woman  could  read, 
they  had  turned  to  Dante  and  the  spiritual  love  which 
was  an  inspiration  and  a  benediction.  In  the  white 
soul  of  Beatrice  they  found  the  exquisite  flower  of 
womanhood.  They  caught  also  the  subtle  fragrance 
of  the  ideal  love  which  Petrarch  gave,  first  to  a 
woman,  then  to  an  unfading  memory.  It  was  of 
such  a  love  they  dreamed  and  liked  to  talk.  Then 
one  of  the  chief  apostles  of  Platonism  was  the 
brilliant  Bembo,  who  was  the  star  of  this  company. 
"Through  love,"  he  says,  "the  supreme  virtues 
rule  the  inferior."  He  puts  on  record  and  dedicates 
to  Lucrezia  Borgia  the  conversations  of  three  days 
on  its  joys  and  sorrows ;  but  the  subject  was  evi- 
dently exhausted,  as,  at  the  end,  a  hermit  gives  a 
homily , on  the  vanity  of  the  world.  He  closes  an  elo- 
quent apostrophe,  however,  with  these  words  :  "Chase 
away  ignorance  and  make  us  see  celestial  beauty 
in  its  perfection.  Love,  it  is  the  communion  with 

312 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

divine  beauty,  the  banquet  of  angels,  the  heavenly 
ambrosia."  On  this  theme  his  listeners  rang  the 
changes,  but  not  always  on  so  ethereal  a  plane.  The 
relative  constancy  of  the  sexes,  the  divine  right  of 
man,  the  passive  nature  of  woman,  who  was  called 
a  pale  moon  to  the  masculine  sun,  and  various  other 
points,  had  their  fair  share  of  discussion.  Between 
terrestrial  and  celestial  love  there  are  many  grada- 
tions, and  the  character  and  temperament  of  the 
men  were  clearly  revealed  in  their  opinions.  Some 
were  disposed  to  be  autocrats,  others  took  issue 
with  masculine  egotism,  and  still  others  dwelt  on 
the  sentimental  side  of  the  question.  One  of  the 
Fregosos  rather  ungraciously  assumed  the  tradi- 
tional attitude  of  his  sex  and  contended  that  women 
are  "  imperfect  animals,"  not  at  all  to  be  compared 
with  men.  But  he  was  in  an  unpopular  minority. 
The  Duchess  Elisabetta  was  a  well-poised,  discreet 
woman,  who  was  devoted  to  her  invalid  husband, 
kept  her  admirers  at  a  prudent  distance,  and  was  in 
no  wise  a  victim  to  superfluous  sensibility.  The 
effusive  Bembo,  who  was  given  to  friendships 
touched  with  the  fire  of  the  imagination,  was  untiring 
in  his  devotion  to  this  Minerva,  but  he  confessedly 
adored  her  as  a  goddess  from  afar.  The  witty 
and  brilliant  Emilia  Pia  had  a  temperament  the 
reverse  of  sentimental,  and  was  ready  to  de- 
molish any  castle  of  moonlight  with  a  shaft  of 
merciless  satire.  Both  brought  a  solid  equipment 

313 


THE   LITERARY    COURTS 

of  common  sense  into  an  analysis  that  often  reached 
a  very  fine  point.  But  this  friendship  that  was  not 
love,  this  love  that  was  a  sublimated  friendship, 
appealed  to  them  as  it  did  to  many  others  besides 
poets  in  a  grossly  material  age.  To  separate  the 
soul  from  the  senses  and  intellectualize  the  emo- 
tions, was  the  natural  protest  of  intelligent  women 
against  the  old  traditions  that  considered  them  only 
as  servants  or  toys  of  men's  fancies.  It  took 
them  out  of  the  realm  of  the  passions  and  "  gave 
them  wings  for  a  sublime  flight."  The  mysticism  of 
love  is  closely  related  to  the  mysticism  of  religion, 
and  the  faith  that  sees  God  in  ecstatic  visions  is  not 
far  from  the  love  that  feeds  itself  from  spiritual 
sources.  These  rambling  talks,  to  which  the  young 
ladies  listened  curiously  and  with  interest,  though 
usually  in  discreet  silence,  proved  so  absorbing  that 
on  the  last  of  a  series  of  evenings  devoted  to  the 
subject,  the  party  forgot  its  usual  gaieties,  and  did 
not  disperse  until  the  birds  began  to  sing  in  the 
trees  and  the  rosy  dawn  shone  over  the  rugged 
heights  of  Monte  Catri. 

Ill 

IT  was  these  conversations  that  set  in  motion  the 
wave  of  Platonism  which  swept  over  the  surface  of 
society  for  two  or  three  centuries,  until  it  lost  itself 
in  the  pale  inanities  and  vapid  phrases  of  the  pre- 

314 


AND   PLATONIC    LOVE 

cieuses.  We  find  it  difficult  now  to  conceive  of  a 
company  of  grave  dignitaries  old  and  young,  states- 
men, wits,  men  of  letters,  and  clever  women,  chas- 
ing theories  of  love  through  an  infinity  of  shades 
and  gradations,  as  seriously  as  we  talk  of  trusts, 
strikes,  education,  and  the  best  means  of  making 
everybody  happy.  The  subject  had  a  perennial 
interest  for  them.  They  considered  it  mathemati- 
cally as  to  quantity,  spiritually  as  to  quality.  They 
quoted  Plato  on  love  and  divine  beauty,  but  no 
one  would  have  been  more  surprised  at  the  appli- 
cation than  the  philosopher  himself.  They  proposed 
to  do  away  with  all  the  chagrins  and  disenchant- 
ments  of  love,  by  making  it  altogether  a  dream, 
beautiful,  no  doubt,  but  shadowy.  As  a  last  refuge, 
they  put  terrestrial  love  into  celestial  robes  and 
drowned  themselves  in  illusions.  Bembo  wished  to 
serve  Isabella  d'Este  "  as  if  she  were  Pope,"  but  he 
sends  her  quite  tenderly  the  kiss  of  his  soul,  which 
she,  no  doubt,  took  gracefully  and  at  its  value.  She 
was  not  a  sentimental  woman ;  a  clear,  vigorous  in- 
tellect is  a  very  good  antidote  against  false  sensi- 
bility. But  these  other  vigorous  intellects  were  so 
busy  weaving  the  tissue  of  their  dreams  that  they 
did  not  trouble  themselves  much  about  possible 
applications. 

This  Platonic  mania,  which  ran  through  Italian 
society,  and,  if  it  did  nothing  else,  tempered  its 
grossness  and  spiritualized  its  ideals,  did  not  origi- 

315 


THE    LITERARY   COURTS 

nate  at  Urbino,  though  it  probably  blossomed  into  a 
fashion  there.  Petrarch  found  the  germ  in  Plato, 
but  he  developed  it  into  fruit  of  quite  another  color, 
and  furnished  the  poets  after  him  with  a  new  back- 
ground for  their  fantasy-flowers.  The  magnificent 
Lorenzo,  poet,  ruler,  patron  of  letters,  Platonist, 
and  buffoon,  went  into  poetic  raptures  at  the  sight 
of  the  beautiful  face  of  "  la  belle  Simonetta"  as  she 
lay  white  and  cold  on  the  bier  that  passed  him  in  the 
street.  He  dreamed  of  it,  apostrophized  it,  grew 
melancholy  over  it,  until  he  found  a  living  face 
almost  as  lovely  about  which  to  drape  the  pearls  of 
his  poetic  fancy.  He  wrote  sonnets  a  la  Petrarch, 
without  the  genuine  ring  of  Petrarch.  It  was  all 
moonlight,  the  pale  copy  of  a  paler  emotion.  But 
he  did  not  in  the  least  lose  control  of  what  he  called 
his  heart,  as  he  dutifully  married  the  woman  his 
clear-headed  mother  chose  for  him ;  she  was  not  at 
all  a  figure  of  romance  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped,  had 
small  knowledge  of  the  vagaries  of  her  theoretically 
Platonic  husband.  In  any  case,  it  was  the  destiny 
of  her  sex  to  submit  to  the  inevitable. 

But  the  dreams  of  the  poets  naturally  found  an 
echo  in  the  hearts  of  lonely  women  and  artless 
maidens.  When  marriage  was  a  matter  of  bargain 
and  sale,  a  union  of  fortune  and  interest  in  which 
love  played  no  part,  sensibility  was  a  subtle  factor 
difficult  to  reckon  with.  A  man  had  legally,  as  well 
as  morally,  supreme  control  over  his  wife.  He  might 

316 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

happen  to  love  her  and  be  kind  to  her,  but  if  he 
chose  to  neglect  her  or  beat  her,  there  was  no  one  to 
find  fault  with  him.  This  "  divine  right "  of  man  was 
the  foundation-stone  of  society,  and  it  was  no 
more  possible  to  question  it  than  it  was  to  question 
the  divine  right  of  popes  and  kings.  Princesses 
were  privileged  beings  who  were  both  useful  and 
ornamental,  but  this  did  not  save  them  from  being 
ill-treated  to  the  last  degree.  No  one  thought 
of  interfering  when  one  of  the  later  Medici,  angry 
at  his  sister,  sent  for  her  husband  and,  after 
telling  him  that  her  frivolous  conduct  reflected  on 
the  decorum  of  his  very  disreputable  court,  bade 
him  remember  that  he  was  a  Christian  and  a  gen- 
tleman, placed  a  villa  at  his  disposal,  and  the  hap- 
less but  too  gay  Isabella,  who  went  there  with 
suspicious  reluctance,  suddenly  died  of  a  convenient 
apoplexy,  and  appeared  no  more  on  this  earthly 
scene  to  be  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  her  brother's 
favorite,  the  very  beautiful  but  too  aspiring  Bianca 
Capello.  His  sister-in-law,  a  much-wronged 
Spanish  princess,  was  invited  to  a  gloomy  old  cas- 
tle among  the  hills  at  the  same  time,  and  disposed 
of  in  a  similar  way,  by  her  amiable  husband,  who 
asked  forty  thousand  ducats  for  the  deed,  and 
expiated  it  at  once  by  a  prayer  to  the  Virgin,  and 
a  vow  which  he  forgot. 

With  all  these  tragic  possibilities,  it  was  out  of  the 
question  to  secure  a  divorce  for  any  incompatibility 

317 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

of  temper,  small  or  great,  unless  his  Holiness  saw 
that  it  would  serve  some  interest  or  caprice  of  his 
own,  and  incidentally  add  to  the  glory  of  the 
church.  But  pent-up  emotions  are  apt  to  be 
troublesome,  and  it  is  hardly  strange  that  these 
women,  with  an  abyss  on  one  side  and  a  vacuum  on 
the  other,  sought  a  way  of  reconciling  matters  that 
infringed  visibly  on  no  man's  rights.  They  adopted 
the  fashion  of  supplementing  a  terrestrial  love  that 
was  not  very  comfortable  with  a  celestial  one  which, 
if  rather  attenuated,  seemed  quite  innocent  and 
harmless,  and  gave  them  something  pleasant  to  think 
about.  These  airy  and  Platonic  sentiments  had  a 
much  more  substantial  character  among  men  and 
women  who  lived  at  a  high  mental  altitude.  It  is 
to  live  confessedly  on  a  very  low  plane  to  deny 
that  there  is  a  tie  of  the  intellect  which  tends  only 
to  fine  issues,  and  is  a  source  of  light  and  inspira- 
tion. But  this  implies  first  of  all  an  intellect  of 
distinct  range,  and  a  clear  moral  sense,  that  are 
not  always  forthcoming.  The  friendship  between 
Michelangelo  and  Vittoria  Colonna  was  a  sympathy 
between  two  exalted  souls  who  dwelt  habitually  on 
the  heights,  far  above  the  mists  of  sense  and  the  ba- 
nalities of  lesser  minds.  "Friendship  is  not  a  senti- 
ment without  fire,"  wrote  the  cold  and  skeptical 
Buffon  to  Mme.  Necker,  nearly  four  centuries 
later ;  "  it  is  rather  a  warming  of  the  soul,  an  emo- 
tion, a  movement  sweeter  than  that  of  any  other 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

passion,  and  also  quite  as  strong."  But  this  passion 
of  friendship  can  exist  in  its  perfection  only  between 
those  in  whom  sensibility  lights  the  intellect  with- 
out submerging  it ;  on  a  lower  plane  it  has  its 
dangers. 

In  the  days  of  the  precieuses,  the  apostles  of  Pla- 
tonic love  cut  the  cord  that  bound  them  to  reality, 
and  floated  away  on  a  cloud  of  pure  emotionalism. 
Merged  in  affectations,  it  finally  evaporated  in 
phrases  on  the  lips  of  sighing  youths  and  romantic 
maidens.  In  the  Anglo-Saxon  world  it  never  had 
a  very  strong  foothold.  The  race  is  not  sufficiently 
imaginative. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  there  has  been  a  great 
deal  of  senseless  talk  about  Platonic  love,  and  that 
it  drew  after  it  much  that  was  far  from  Platonic. 
We  all  know  that  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
daughters  of  devotion  is  hypocrisy,  but  who  can 
hold  religion  responsible  because  its  garb  is  put  on 
to  disguise  sin?  The  trouble  is  that  the  finest 
spirits  are  apt  to  be  measured  by  the  standards  of 
the  lowest.  It  is  not  easy  to  convince  people  of 
material  ideals  that  all  things  are  not  to  be  brought 
to  their  level.  But  this  curious  agitation  had  its 
place  and  did  its  work.  We  may  smile  at  the  finely 
drawn  sophistries  of  a  Bembo,  who  pointed  to  an 
ideal  he  sometimes  failed  to  reach.  It  is  easy  enough 
for  cynics  to  say  that  Beatrice,  the  apotheosis  of 
spiritual  love,  died  early,  and  was  worshiped,  not  as 

319 


THE   LITERARY    COURTS 

a  woman,  but  as  a  star  shining  from  inaccessible 
heights ;  that  Laura,  the  ideal  of  the  high  priest  of 
Platonism,  was  simply  a  dream,  intangible  as  the 
moonlight  and  cold  as  the  everlasting  snows ;  that 
it  is  not  good  for  every-day  men  and  women  to  see 
such  visions,  even  if  it  were  possible,  nor  to  dream 
such  dreams,  nor  to  live  at  such  an  altitude — all  of 
which  no  doubt  has  its  side  of  truth.  But  the  fact 
remains  that  it  was  largely  through  the  inspired 
vision,  which  looked  past  the  entanglements  of  sense 
into  the  pure  heart  and  transparent  soul  of  an  ideal- 
ized womanhood,  that  the  long-enduring  sex  came 
into  its  intellectual  kingdom.  To  the  old  ties  of 
interest,  passion,  and  habit,  were  added  those  of  the 
intellect  and  spirit.  In  this  new  contact  of  intelli- 
gences society  had  its  birth,  women  took  their 
rightful  places,  and  the  world  found  a  new  regener- 
ating force. 

IV 

THE  life  at  Urbino,  with  its  literary  flavor,  its  refined 
manners,  its  serious  conversations,  and  its  Platonic 
dreams,  took  another  tone  at  Ferrara.  This  court 
was  gayer,  but  hardly  less  noted  as  a  center  of  cul- 
ture. No  one  chronicled  its  conversations,  but  the 
fame  of  its  poets  illuminated  it.  Boiardo  lived  and 
wrote  and  administered  affairs  in  the  magnificent 
old  castle  whose  four  towers  frown  to-day  in  lonely 
grandeur  over  the  silent  and  grass-grown  streets  of 

320 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

the  once  lively  city;  Ariosto  immortalized  the 
women  "  as  fair  as  good,  and  as  learned  as  they  were 
fair,"  who  gathered  artists,  men  of  letters,  states- 
men, cardinals,  and  philosophers  within  its  tapes- 
tried walls ;  and  the  genius  of  Tasso  still  sheds  over 
it  a  melancholy  splendor  strangely  contrasting  with 
the  tragedy  that  left  so  dark  a  cloud  on  the  last 
days  of  its  glory. 

The  Duke  Hercules  I  did  a  wise  thing  for  the 
brilliancy  of  his  reign  when  he  chose  for  his  wife 
the  learned  and  accomplished  Leonora  of  Aragon, 
who  had  grown  up  in  the  intellectual  atmosphere 
of  her  royal  father's  court  at  Naples.  She  was  a 
versatile  princess,  a  lover  of  art,  a  patron  of  letters, 
and  an  able,  efficient  woman,  who  gave  equal  care 
to  the  fostering  of  talent  and  the  practical  interests 
of  her  people.  The  art  of  gold  and  silver  metal 
work,  on  which  she  was  an  authority,  reached  great 
perfection  under  her  patronage,  and  she  gave  her 
personal  supervision  to  the  skilled  embroiderers 
whom  she  brought  from  elsewhere  to  stimulate  the 
native  artists.  When  her  husband  was  absent  he 
left  the  government  in  her  charge.  Nothing  shows 
more  clearly  the  masterful  ability  of  these  Italian 
princesses  than  the  wisdom  and  facility  with  which 
they  managed  public  affairs,  and  the  confidence 
reposed  in  them.  In  this  model  republic  of  the 
twentieth  century,  who  would  think  of  intrusting 
matters  of  State  to  the  wife  of  president  or  gov- 

321 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

ernor  in  any  emergency  whatever?  Let  us  admit 
that  women  are  not  trained  here  for  such  responsi- 
bilities, even  if  they  cared  to  assume  them ;  but 
why  treat  us  to  a  homily  on  their  natural  incapacity 
for  affairs  of  State,  in  the  face  of  innumerable  ex- 
amples in  the  past  that  prove  the  contrary  ? 

And  these  women  lost  neither  their  charm  nor 
their  essentially  feminine  qualities.  Certainly  there 
was  no  wiser  mother  than  this  same  Duchess  Leo- 
nora. Her  daughters  had  the  best  of  masters,  and 
were  versed  in  all  the  knowledge  of  the  day,  as  well 
as  in  the  lighter  accomplishments.  They  were 
schooled  also  in  the  duties  of  their  high  position,  and 
were  never  permitted  to  neglect  their  serious  studies 
for  amusement.  While  they  were  busy  with  their 
tapestries  some  man  of  letters  recited  or  read  to 
them.  Perhaps  it  was  Boiardo,  perhaps  another 
of  the  literary  stars  of  the  court.  The  untiring 
mother  had  her  reward  in  the  fame  and  virtuous 
character  of  these  children.  One  of  them,  the 
beautiful  and  gifted  Isabella  d'Este,  had  a  brilliant 
career  as  the  Marchioness  of  Mantua,  and  her 
scarcely  less  fascinating  sister  Beatrice  carried  the 
tastes  of  her  own  youth  to  the  more  splendid  but 
corrupt  court  of  the  Sforzas  at  Milan. 

The  enlightened  duchess,  who  seems  to  have 
been  as  kind  as  she  was  capable,  did  not  escape 
calumny,  as  few  did  in  that  age  of  license ;  but  she 
has  a  blessed  immortality  in  the  glowing  lines  of 

322 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

Ariosto,  who  paid  an  eloquent  tribute  to  her  talents 
and  virtues  at  her  death.  The  court  of  Ferrara 
never  lost  the  lettered  tone  which  she  gave  it,  though 
its  fashions  of  living  and  thinking  changed  from 
time  to  time. 

One  cannot  quote  her  son's  wife,  the  fair- haired 
Lucrezia  Borgia,  as  a  model  princess,  though  in 
later  years  she  partly  redeemed  the  faults  of  her 
past  by  her  kindness  to  the  poor,  her  intelligent 
patronage  of  art  and  letters,  and  her  devotion  as 
wife  and  mother.  It  is  not  likely  that  she  was  as 
black  as  she  has  been  painted,  or,  as  has  been  sug- 
gested by  later  historians,  Ariosto,  with  all  his 
courtier  love  for  paying  pretty  compliments  to 
women,  especially  princesses,  would  hardly  have 
dared  to  put  her  on  a  level  with  the  Roman  Lu- 
cretia  in  "  charms  and  chastity,"  in  a  country  where 
satire  was  merciless  and  scandal  many-tongued.  In 
her  tragical  youth  she  was  possibly  more  sinned 
against  than  sinning.  With  a  father  who  was  the 
embodiment  of  all  the  vices,  and  brothers  as 
powerful  as  they  were  infamous,  one  can  readily 
imagine  that  she  had  little  choice  in  her  manner  of 
life.  It  was  quite  in  the  interest  of  this  terrible 
trio  that  her  three  husbands  were  disposed  of  in 
one  way  or  another,  and  it  was  equally  in  their 
interest  that  the  widowed  Duke  Alfonso  was 
virtually  forced  to  marry  her,  though  evidently 
against  his  inclination.  The  wishes  of  a  Holy  Father 

323 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

with  unlimited  power  were  compelling.  And  so  it 
happened  that  this  beautiful,  clever,  and  much- 
talked-of  woman  went  to  Ferrara  with  a  flourish  of 
trumpets,  as  became  a  pope's  daughter.  She  was 
only  twenty-five,  though  she  had  seen  tragedies 
enough  to  color  a  lifetime.  On  her  way  she  vis- 
ited Urbino  with  her  two  thousand  attendants, — 
princesses  were  costly  guests  in  those  days,-— 
and  the  good  Duchess  Elisabetta,  by  command  of 
this  wicked  and  grasping  Holy  Father,  who  had 
designs  on  her  own  domains  that  might  be  fur- 
thered by  her  absence,  went  with  the  much  her- 
alded bride  to  take  part  in  the  magnificent  wed- 
ding festivities.  There  was  little  in  the  entry  of 
this  brilliant  but  very  much  clouded  Lucrezia  on 
her  white  jennet,  resplendent  in  satin  and  gold  and 
flashing  jewels,  to  suggest  the  beauty  and  desir- 
ableness of  "  plain  living  and  high  thinking."  To 
be  sure,  she  had  university  dons  to  support  her 
canopy,  and  all  the  learning  of  Ferrara  in  her  train  ; 
but  it  was  a  fashion  of  these  princesses  to  honor 
scholars.  Then  there  were  comedies  of  Plautus  to 
give  the  occasion  a  classic  flavor,  besides  music,  dan- 
cing, medieval  combats,  Moorish  interludes,  and  more 
barbaric  amusements  for  the  multitude.  The  splen- 
dors of  dress,  the  wealth  of  velvets,  brocades,  gold, 
and  gems,  were  all  duly  chronicled  by  the  society 
reporter  of  the  time,  and  the  descriptions  of  mod- 
ern court  balls  seem  modest  and  tame  in  compar- 

324 


AND    PLATONIC   LOVE 

ison.  The  good  Duchess  Leonora  had  been  sleep- 
ing in  her  tomb  with  the  other  princesses  many  a 
year,  duly  labeled  by  Ariosto.  But  the  pure-souled 
Isabella  d'Este  was  there  with  a  new  and  regal  cos- 
tume for  every  scene,  and  no  doubt  various  misgiv- 
ings about  her  imposing  sister-in-law  which  she 
thought  best  to  say  nothing  about. 

This  dangerous  Lucrezia,  however,  had  her  serious 
moments.  After  the  pageants  were  over,  she  took 
out  of  her  traveling-case  the  Dante  and  Petrarch 
she  had  brought  for  her  daily  reading,  also  some 
histories,  with  her  manual  of  devotion.  She  had, 
too,  her  literary  circle  of  poets,  savants,  men  of  let- 
ters, prelates,  cardinals,  and  clever  women  who 
spoke  in  Latin  and  wrote  Greek  quite  naturally  and 
as  a  matter  of  course.  They  talked  of  manners,  art, 
and  philosophy,  as  at  Urbino,  but  perhaps  not  quite 
so  seriously ;  they  talked  also  of  love,  spiritual  and 
otherwise.  The  inevitable  Bembo  was  there  for  a 
time,  and  afterward  wrote  Platonic  letters  about 
literature  to  the  friend  of  his  soul,  which  she  an- 
swered with  insight  and  discrimination  as  well  as 
matronly  discretion.  These  letters  were  preserved, 
with  a  lock  of  her  golden  hair. 

There  is  little  trace  of  the  early  Lucrezia  in  her 
later  years.  No  more  worldly  vanities.  She  prayed  a 
great  deal,  and  spent  her  evenings  in  working  beau- 
tiful designs  in  embroidery  with  the  ladies  of  her 
court.  "  Her  husband  and  his  subjects  all  loved 

325 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

her  for  her  gracious  manners  and  her  piety,"  we  are 
told.  She  was  not  old  when  she  died, —  two  or 
three  years  past  forty, — leaving  an  inconsolable 
husband  and  several  children.  In  a  letter  of  con- 
dolence the  Doge  of  Venice  gives  great  praise  to 
her  devotion  and  her  fine  qualities  of  character. 
The  most  distinguished  prelates  of  the  day  pay  a 
tribute  to  her  many  virtues.  The  experiences  of 
her  life,  which  were  dark  enough  at  its  beginning  and 
too  surely  not  blameless,  are  wrapped  in  a  mystery 
so  deep  that  we  cannot  fairly  judge  them  to-day. 

If  the  court  of  Ferrara  was  gay,  literary,  artistic, 
with  more  or  less  of  a  dilettante  tone  under  Lucre  - 
zia,  it  took  quite  another  color  in  the  reign  of  her 
daughter-in-law,  the  serious  and  thoughtful  Renee. 
This  princess  had  more  solid  qualities  of  intellect, 
but  less  beauty  and  less  charm.  "  She  was  good 
and  clever,  with  a  mind  the  best  and  most  acute 
possible,"  says  Brantome.  Her  father  was  Louis 
XII,  and  her  mother  Anne  of  Bretagne,  whose 
talent  and  independent  spirit  she  inherited.  She  had 
Protestant  tendencies,  and  brought  strange  guests 
to  these  stately  halls  and  haunts  of  poets.  Calvin 
was  among  them.  He  was  young  then,  and  came 
under  the  name  of  Charles  d'Espeville — which  was 
much  safer  for  an  arch-heretic.  With  him  came 
Clement  Marot,  a  poet  and  a  heretic  of  milder 
type,  who  shone  brilliantly  at  the  court  of  the  clever 
Marguerite  of  Navarre.  The  stern  moralist  and 

326 


AND   PLATONIC    LOVE 

ascetic  reformer  was  no  friend  to  women,  except 
as  convenient  appendages,  and  these  were  apt  to 
be  troublesome  unless  kept  in  their  lowly  place. 
He  looked  upon  their  government  as  "  a  deviation 
from  the  original  and  proper  order  of  nature,  to 
be  ranked  no  less  than  slavery  among  the  punish- 
ments consequent  upon  the  fall  of  man."  In  this 
case  he  evidently  found  the  punishment  rather 
pleasant,  as  he  stayed  many  months  in  a  court 
where  the  power  of  women  was  very  much  en 
evidence,  though  it  fell  under  an  eclipse  because 
of  him.  Perhaps  he  modified  his  opinions  for  the 
moment  in  so  stimulating  an  atmosphere.  While  he 
never  fails  to  denounce  the  "  inferior  sex  "  in  plain 
terms,  he  is  kind  enough  to  make  discreet  excep- 
tions as  to  women  in  high  places,  who  were  not 
made  of  common  clay.  It  was  certainly  inconve- 
nient for  the  duke  to  have  a  wife  with  convictions, 
who  persisted  in  compromising  him  with  the  higher 
powers ;  but  what  would  have  become  of  the  supe- 
rior Calvin,  with  the  door  closed  upon  him  and  the 
Inquisition  on  his  track,  if  this  incapable  being  had 
been  superintending  the  cook  and  the  maids  or 
working  patterns  in  embroidery,  as  she  plainly 
ought  to  have  been,  instead  of  courageously  and 
with  clear  foresight  despatching  some  trustworthy 
friends  to  liberate  the  reverend  suspect  from  his 
dangerous  and  uncomfortable  surveillance,  and 
send  him  on  his  way  to  a  freer  air? 

327 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

There  was  much  talk  on  free  will  and  election, 
as  well  as  of  sinners  in  power,  and  the  need  of 
grace  and  reformation,  when  Vittoria  Colonna 
came,  a  little  later,  to  enjoy  the  liberty  of  thought 
and  literary  discussion  for  which  this  court  was 
famous,  also  to  forward  the  interest  of  her  friend, 
the  eloquent  Fra  Bernardino,  who  wished  to  found 
here  a  Capuchin  convent.  It  was  quite  safe  to  sit 
on  the  grass  or  in  the  gardens  during  the  long 
summer  evenings,  listening  to  a  Greek  play,  and 
talking  about  the  respective  merits  of  Homer  and 
Petrarch,  who  had  been  dead  a  long  time,  or  the 
genius  of  Ariosto,  who  had  just  closed  his  eyes 
after  charming  his  age  and  saying  so  many  agree- 
able things  about  its  women.  But  it  was  not  so  safe 
to  reflect  on  wicked  popes,  or  call  in  question  what- 
ever dogma  they  might  choose  to  present  to  a 
credulous  world.  The  Duchess  Renee  was  made 
sadly  conscious  of  this  fact,  as  was  her  gifted  pro- 
tegee, Olympia  Morata.  Her  mind  had  a  mystical 
quality,  and  the  germs  of  a  more  spiritual  faith  had 
taken  root  there.  But  her  amiable  husband  applied 
the  screw  as  he  was  told.  To  have  one's  children 
taken  away  and  to  be  confined  in  a  remote  corner 
of  one's  castle  was  too  much  to  bear,  and  a  suspi- 
ciously sudden  conversion  under  good  orthodox 
ministrations  was  the  result,  with  convenient  mental 
reservations  to  serve  until  the  duke  died  and  the 
lady  was  safely  back  in  France  with  her  royal  kin 

328 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

and  the  protecting  sympathy  of  her  heretical  friend, 
the  gifted  and  powerful  Marguerite  of  many-sided 
fame. 

But  in  the  meantime  the  literary  talks  went  on, 
led  by  her  brilliant  daughters,  who  contented  them- 
selves with  topics  that  were  less  explosive.  Tasso 
said  that  Lucrezia  and  Leonora  d'Este  were  "  so 
well  versed  in  affairs  of  State  and  literature  that  no 
one  could  listen  to  their  conversation  without 
amazement."  Here,  as  elsewhere,  they  talked  a 
great  deal  about  matters  of  sentiment.  Tasso  held 
a  controversy  at  the  academy  on  "  Fifty  Points  of 
Love."  One  of  them  was  a  question  whether  men 
or  women  love  the  more  constantly  and  intensely. 
Orsini  Cavaletti,  a  lady  of  distinction  in  literature 
and  philosophy,  claimed  the  palm  for  her  own  sex, 
and  came  off  with  equal  if  not  superior  honors 
before  a  learned  and  brilliant  audience^  What  the 
other  points  were  I  do  not  know.  The  amount  of 
energy  expended  on  such  trivial  themes  was  curi- 
ously illustrated  a  few  years  before  by  Isotta  No- 
garola,  a  lady  of  Verona,  who  discussed  with 
learned  men  the  question  as  to  whether  Adam  or 
Eve  was  the  more  guilty,  and  wrote  a  defense  of 
Eve  which  must  have  created  more  than  a  ripple  of 
interest,  as  it  was  printed  a  century  afterward.  This 
champion  of  justice  was  not  a  reformer  nor  an 
emancipee,  but  a  woman  of  rank  and  a  friend  of 
popes,  who  had  the  courage  to  come  to  the  rescue 

329 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

of  her  sex  from  the  denunciations  of  ages.  Doubt- 
less the  discussion  was  largely  a  play  of  wit  and  an 
exercise  in  analysis  that  applied  itself  to  small 
things,  since  it  was  not  safe  to  attack  great  ones. 

But  our  unfortunate  poet  did  not  confine  himself 
to  theory,  and  love  proved  a  more  disastrous  sub- 
ject for  him  than  did  religion  for  some  of  his  friends. 
It  was  to  this  same  brilliant  Leonora,  whom  he 
lauded  to  the  skies,  that  Tasso  dared  lift  his  eyes 
in  too  familiar  or  ambitious  a  fashion  before  he  was 
shut  out  of  the  world  seven  years  as  a  madman. 
Whatever  the '  facts  of  this  tragical  romance  may 
have  been,  we  know  that  the  lady  died  at  forty-five, 
in  the  odor  of  sanctity  and  unmarried,  while  her 
gayer  but  equally  clever  sister  became  the  wife  of 
the  last  Duke  of  Urbino,  whom  she  found  so  dull 
and  tiresome  that  she  returned  after  three  years  to 
her  brother's  court,  where  the  livelier  tastes  were 
more  to  her  liking.  But  its  glories  had  already 
paled  and  its  stars  had  mostly  set.  Tasso  was  the 
last. 

The  traveler  of  to-day  looks  with  curious  eye  on 
the  faded  splendors  of  the  grim  old  castle,  and 
speculates  idly  upon  the  tragedies  that  have  been 
acted  within  its  silent  walls.  But  he  goes  away  to 
the  poor  little  cell  at  the  hospital  of  St.  Anna  and 
drops  a  tear  over  the  fate  of  the  poet  who  ate  his 
heart  out  there.  Time  brings  strange  reparations, 
but  they  are  always  too  late. 

330 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 


IN  the  days  when  they  were  talking  of  men,  wo- 
men, and  manners  at  Urbino,  and  the  brilliant 
Bembo  was  writing  high-flown  letters  about  litera- 
ture and  celestial  love  to  Lucrezia  Borgia,  or  dis- 
coursing upon  the  same  themes,  in  the  intervals  of 
many  graver  ones,  at  Ferrara,  and  Alexander  VI 
was  making  the  society  of  Rome  as  wicked  as  he 
knew  how,  which  was  very  wicked  indeed,  Isabella 
d'Este,  wife  of  the  Marquis  of  Mantua,  was  the 
central  figure  of  one  of  the  most  charming  and  in- 
tellectual courts  in  Italy.  This  "  noble-minded 
Isabel,"  of  whom  Ariosto  says, 

I  know  not  well  if  she  more  fair 

May  be  entitled,  or  more  chaste  and  sage, 

carried  with  her  to  the  banks  of  the  Mincio,  already 
made  classic  as  the  birthplace  of  Vergil,  the  literary 
tastes  which  had  been  nurtured  in  the  scholarly  air 
of  Ferrara.  We  have  seen  her  developing  as  a 
child  under  the  care  of  the  wise  Leonora.  At  six 
she  astonished  the  envoy  sent  to  arrange  her  be- 
trothal, by  her  precocious  intelligence,  engaging 
conversation,  and  graceful  manners.  It  was  a  kindly 
fate  that  led  her  to  the  court  of  the  Gonzagas, 
which  was  famous  for  the  learning  and  culture  of 
its  women. 

331 


THE   LITERARY   COURTS 

Of  all  the  princesses  who  shed  such  luster  on  this 
period  she  had,  perhaps,  the  most  personal  distinc- 
tion. To  the  wisdom  and  force  of  her  mother  she 
added  more  esprit  and  a  warmer  temperament.  In 
tact,  dignity,  learning,  and  the  virtues  of  a  well- 
poised  character,  she  did  not  surpass  her  husband's 
sister,  the  much-loved  Duchess  Elisabetta  of  Ur- 
bino,  but  she  seems  to  have  had  more  native  bril- 
liancy of  intellect.  Living  from  1474  to  1525,  she 
was  brought  into  familiar  contact  with  the  most 
famous  men  and  women  of  the  golden  age  of  the 
Renaissance,  and  played  an  important  part  in  many 
of  its  stormy  crises,  but,  under  all  conditions,  one 
is  impressed  with  her  strong  individuality,  her  ver- 
satility, her  intrepid  spirit,  and  her  unfailing  charm. 
She  combined  the  tenderness  of  a  woman  with 
the  mental  vigor  of  a  man.  Fair,  witty,  gracious, 
and  a  noted  beauty,  she  was  equally  at  home  dis- 
cussing art  and  literature  with  the  masters,  and  grave 
political  problems  with  popes  and  kings,  arranging 
fetes,  ordering  a  picture,  selecting  a  brocade,  or 
playing  with  a  child. 

The  old  and  imposing  palace  of  Mantua  to  this  day 
shows  traces  of  the  taste  and  generosity  of  its  most 
distinguished  mistress.  She  filled  it  with  rare  books, 
exquisite  tapestries,  and  curios  of  all  sorts,  chosen 
with  the  discrimination  of  a  connoisseur.  Its  walls 
were  decorated  with  the  masterpieces  of  Correggio, 
Mantegna,  Perugino,  and  other  great  artists  whom 

332 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

she  was  proud  to  call  her  friends.  Chief  among 
those  in  whose  conversation  she  delighted  were  Ti- 
tian and  Leonardo  da  Vinci,  who  immortalized  her. 
A  living  portrait  by  the  latter  is  still  one  of  the 
treasures  of  the  Louvre.  Her  keen  critical  taste 
was  quick  to  divine  intrinsic  values,  and  she  was 
always  on  the  alert  for  fresh  talent  to  add  to  the 
glories  of  her  little  court.  It  was  not  rich,  and  we 
find  her  troubled  at  the  prospect  of  entertaining  her 
sister's  magnificent  husband,  Lodovico  Sforza, 
who  proposed  to  visit  her  with  a  retinue  of  a  thou- 
sand or  so.  But  her  money  went  freely  for  every- 
thing pertaining  to  matters  of  intellect  and  taste. 
She  sent  her  agents  in  all  directions,  even  to  the 
far  East,  and  a  new-found  statue,  a  rare  bit  of  tap- 
estry, or  a  precious  mosaic  was  an  event  of  joy. 
Her  own  teeming  imagination  was  full  of  pictures, 
and  she  liked  to  suggest  themes  to  artists,  which 
were  not  always  easy  to  put  into  living  form.  But 
her  sympathetic  and  intelligent  enthusiasm  was  in 
itself  an  inspiration. 

This  critical,  art-loving  Isabella,  however,  was 
more  than  a  dilettante.  Her  heart  went  out  to 
every  form  of  suffering.  Running  over  with  kind- 
ness, and  always  ready  to  help  the  needy  and  de- 
serving, her  sympathies  sometimes  got  the  better 
of  her  judgment,  and  more  than  once  she  had  to 
regret  enlisting  her  friends  in  the  cause  of  the  un- 
worthy. This  generous  quality  was  a  part  of  her 

333 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

rich  temperament.  With  her  intellectual  tastes, 
and  the  many  cares  and  responsibilities  of  her  po- 
sition, she  was  no  grave  and  cold  Minerva.  We 
find  her  everywhere  entering  into  the  sports  and 
gaieties  of  her  age  with  the  zest  of  a  woman 
abounding  in  spirit,  vitality,  and  the  joy  of  life. 
When  she  went  to  see  her  sister  at  Milan,  she  rode, 
danced,  hunted,  made  impromptu  verses,  dazzled 
her  friends  with  flashes  of  wit,  and  fascinated  old 
and  young  alike  with  her  winning,  lively  ways. 
Her  powerful  brother-in-law  was  always  glad  to 
consult  her  on  serious  questions  of  State,  as  well  as 
on  his  vast  plans  for  making  a  beautiful  and  artistic 
city.  The  things  that  were  shaping  themselves  in 
the  minds  of  great  artists  appealed  to  her  ardent 
imagination.  "  This  is  the  school  of  the  master 
and  of  those  who  know,  the  home  of  art  and  under- 
standing," she  wrote  from  there. 

Her  letters  to  her  family  are  always  full  of  viva- 
city, clear  and  to  the  point,  but  glowing  with  affec- 
tion. The  friendships  she  inspired  were  devoted, 
even  passionate.  "  It  seems  as  if  I  had  lost  not 
only  a  tenderly  loved  sister,  but  a  part  of  myself," 
wrote  the  Duchess  Elisabetta,  after  one  of  her  visits. 
"  I  long  to  write  to  you  every  hour.  ...  If  I  could 
clearly  express  to  you  my  grief,  I  am  sure  it  would 
have  so  much  force  that  compassion  would  bring 
you  back."  In  such  a  spirit  these  women  wrote  to 
one  another.  The  Latin  race  is  effusive,  and  the 

334 


AND   PLATONIC    LOVE 

art  of  expression,  which  is  its  supreme  gift,  no 
doubt  often  ran  ahead  of  the  feeling  or  the  thought ; 
but  these  familiar  letters  bear  the  stamp  of  sincerity 
and  help  us  to  know  the  manner  of  woman  that 
wrote  them. 

This  noble  lady  of  so  many  gifts  and  graces  was 
born  to  lead  and  not  to  follow.  She  could  take  the 
affairs  of  government  on  occasion,  and  was  amply 
fitted  to  rule  firmly  and  wisely.  Her  first  aim  was 
to  win  the  love  of  her  people,  which,  she  says,  is  of 
"  more  value  to  a  State  than  all  its  fortresses,  trea- 
sures, and  men-at-arms."  When  her  husband  had 
matters  to  settle  that  required  delicate  diplomacy, 
he  sent  her  on  a  special  embassy  to  the  Vatican, 
where  the  Pope  loaded  her  with  honors  and  had 
Bibbiena's  new  comedy,  "Calandra,"  played  for  her 
entertainment.  A  helpful  wife  was  this  queen  of 
the  Renaissance,  and  no  one  knew  it  better  than 
her  husband,  whose  profession  was  war,  which  often 
led  him  far  from  the  court  she  had  made  so  famous. 
Perhaps  she  had  a  trace  of  pardonable  vanity.  She 
deferred  a  visit  to  Venice  because  she  did  not  care 
to  have  her  modest  train  brought  into  so  close  a 
contrast  with  the  imposing  splendors  of  the  "  little 
sister  "  whom  she  loved  but  did  not  attempt  to 
rival  on  her  own  ground.  The  glories  she  most 
sought  were  of  the  intellect  and  not  to  be  bought 
with  money. 

The  distinctive  quality  she  impressed   upon  her 

335 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

court  was  an  artistic  one.  Its  art  treasures  were  of 
the  choicest,  and  the  best  plays,  classical  or  modern, 
were  brought  out  there.  Music  was  her  passion. 
She  sang  well  herself,  also  played  the  lute  and 
viol.  In  the  days  before  Palestrina  had  opened  a 
new  world  of  harmony,  she  maintained  one  of  the 
finest  orchestras  in  Italy.  No  gifted  musician  ever 
appealed  to  her  in  vain.  But  there  was  no  field  of 
thought  in  her  time  which  she  did  not  explore.  If 
her  knowledge  was  not  profound,  it  was  wide,  and 
she  looked  at  things  largely  from  a  human  point 
of  view,  not  superficially,  but  sympathetically. 
She  applied  her  intelligence  and  her  talents  not 
only  to  the  advancement  of  the  fine  arts,  to  the 
cultivation  of  the  best  in  literature,  to  the  interests 
of  her  people,  but  to  the  art  of  living  with  due 
regard  for  one's  duties  and  responsibilities  to  the 
future  as  well  as  to  the  present.  If  Vittoria 
Colonna  represents  the  highest  thought  of  her  age 
as  applied  to  things  spiritual  and  literary,  Isabella 
d'Este  is  a  living  example  of  its  finest  mundane 
side.  No  one  better  illustrates  the  power  and  the 
penetrating  fragrance  of  a  strong  and  vivid  person- 
ality. It  is  a  type  that  has  many  imitators,  but 
such  a  gift,  which  is  an  assemblage  of  many  gifts, 
cannot  be  copied. 

A  court  dominated  by  so  rare  a  spirit,  and  attract- 
ing all  the  refinement,  talent,  and  intelligence  of  a 
brilliant  age,  could  not  be  otherwise  than  luminous. 

336 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

We  have  no  record  of  its  conversations,  but  we 
know  that  its  standards  were  high,  and  that  the 
best  passports  of  admission  there  were  achieve- 
ments of  the  intellect.  Rank  no  doubt  had  its 
place,  and  manners  were  indispensable,  but  to 
genius  and  learning  much  was  forgiven.  Purely 
material  splendors  had  small  weight.  Some  of  its 
princes  had  left  traditions  of  culture,  but  it  was  a 
woman  of  intellect,  force,  independence,  and  charm 
who  gathered  these  into  a  society  that  proved 
a  center  of  light  which  shone  brightly  on  after 
generations. 

VI 

OF  scarcely  less  interest  than  Isabella  d'Este  is  her 
sister  Beatrice,  the  fresh,  dark-eyed,  dark-haired, 
gay,  and  laughing  girl  who  went  to  Milan  at  fif- 
teen as  the  bride  of  Lodovico  Sforza,  and  died 
before  she  was  twenty-two,  after  condensing  the 
experiences  of  a  lifetime  in  a  few  short  years. 
This  court  has  left  the  record  of  much  sin  and 
many  tragedies,  and  it  furnished  some  great  prin- 
cesses to  the  smaller  and  less  imposing  ones,  but 
its  literary  glory  was  not  so  conspicuous  as  its 
splendor  and  its  crimes.  A  court  that  numbered 
Bramante  and  Leonardo  da  Vinci  among  its  stars, 
however,  is  not  to  be  passed  lightly.  These  colos- 
sal men  were  not  easy  to  command,  and  prince  as 
well  as  princess  often  appealed  to  them  in  vain.  It 

337 


THE    LITERARY   COURTS 

is  not  likely  that  they  gave  much  precious  time  to 
courtly  pleasures,  as  the  first  order  of  genius  thrives 
better  in  solitude  or  the  sympathetic  companionship 
of  the  few,  though  Leonardo  was  much  sought  after 
for  his  personal  accomplishments.  But  the  inspira- 
tion of  an  intelligent  woman  has  more  to  do  with  the 
results  of  genius  than  an  unthinking  and  altogether 
material  world  is  apt  to  imagine.  The  Duchess 
Beatrice  was  the  moving  spirit  at  Milan  when  its 
greatest  artists  were  creating  the  monuments  that 
were  to  be  its  lasting  glory.  Under  her  critical  eye, 
too,  the  architects,  painters,  sculptors,  and  decora- 
tors made  the  church  and  cloisters  of  Certosa  things 
of  imperishable  beauty,  happily  unconscious  that 
they  were  building  and  carving  the  tomb  of  the  little 
lady  who  was  so  gracious  and  so  appreciative. 

These  artistic  tastes,  which  she  shared  with  her 
sister,  were  inherited  from  her  mother,  and  they 
were  fostered  in  the  court  of  her  grandfather  at 
Naples,  where  she  spent  her  childhood.  At  Fer- 
rara  she  was  a  trifle  overshadowed  by  the  more 
gifted  and  beautiful  Isabella,  but  she  still  lived  in  a 
stimulating  atmosphere.  From  a  worldly  point  of 
view  it  was  a  brilliant  prospect  that  opened  before 
the  young  girl  when  she  went  away  from  classical 
Ferrara  as  the  child-wife  of  a  man  she  had  never 
seen.  On  the  personal  side  the  clouds  were  dark, 
but  that  inner  realm  in  which  lies  happiness  or  mis- 
ery was  never  considered.  The  formidable  Lodovico 

338 


AND   PLATONIC    LOVE 

was  certainly  not  good,  but  he  had  the  cultivated 
tastes  of  his  time,  and  magnificent  projects,  into 
which  the  small  but  clever  duchess  entered  with  en- 
thusiasm. With  grace,  generosity,  a  fine  intellect, 
and  a  singularly  brave  and  vigorous  character,  she 
captivated  at  once  the  heart  of  the  blase  prince,  who 
had  been  none  too  well  pleased  with  the  policy  of  her 
coming.  No  one  loved  better  the  pageants,  tourna- 
ments, and  amusements  of  her  age.  No  one  rode 
more  fearlessly,  hunted  with  more  zest,  or  danced 
with  more  pleasure.  She  pursued  everything  with 
the  ardor  of  youth  and  a  happy  temperament.  But 
her  careful  training  had  not  been  in  vain.  This  fif- 
teen-year-old wife  reserved  her  leisure  hours  for 
serious  things.  She  had  a  fine  literary  as  well  as 
artistic  taste,  and  filled  her  cabinet  with  rare  and 
costly  books.  It  is  common  enough  to  collect  costly 
books  which  are  never  read,  but  not  so  common  for 
pleasure-loving  girls  to  take  delight  in  the  masters 
of  literature.  Even  in  our  enlightened  day  they 
are  apt  to  prefer  novels,  and  usually  very  poor  ones. 
Doubtless  the  Duchess  Beatrice  had  learned  ad- 
visers, but  she  knew  how  to  select  them,  which  is 
in  itself  a  talent.  There  were  many  men  of  letters 
about  the  court,  and  some  of  them  read  to  her 
while  she  was  busy  with  her  needle,  just  as  others 
used  to  do  in  the  old  days  at  Ferrara.  They  did 
not  read  the  last  romance,  but  great  poems,  some- 
times the  "  Divine  Comedy,"  sometimes  Petrarch, 

339 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

sometimes  later  verses,  or  histories.  The  grand 
Lodovico  often  stole  in  to  listen,  and  gave  thought- 
ful attention,  especially  to  the  greater  master.  Per- 
haps he  recalled  those  happy  moments  in  his  sad 
captivity  when  the  only  thing  he  asked  was  a  copy 
of  Dante  to  while  away  the  long  and  lonely  hours 
in  a  French  prison. 

In  the  quiet  summer  days,  among  the  groves  and 
fountains  of  Vigevano  or  Pavia,  when  the  dripping 
of  the  water  and  the  rustling  of  the  leaves  made  a 
sweet  accompaniment  for  the  strains  of  the  orches- 
tra that  floated  away  past  the  tree-tops  and  lost 
themselves  in  the  upper  air,  we  find  her  listening  to 
an  animated  discussion  between  Bramante  and  Gas- 
pari  Visconti  on  the  relative  merits  of  Dante  and  Pe- 
trarch, with  her  own  sympathies  on  the  side  of  the 
more  spiritual  poet.  It  was  this  same  Visconti  who 
said  that  the  talents  and  virtues  of  the  discriminat- 
ing duchess  surpassed  those  of  the  greatest  women 
of  antiquity.  Giuliano  de'  Medici  also  speaks  of 
her  as  a  woman  of  "  wonderful  parts."  Poets,  ar- 
tists, and  singers  flocked  to  her  for  patronage  and 
recognition  from  many  countries,  sure  of  a  gener- 
ous sympathy. 

Nor  were  her  tastes  and  abilities  limited  to  things 
gay,  artistic,  and  literary.  She  had  a  clear  head 
and  a  facile  talent.  When  scarcely  more  than 
eighteen  her  husband  sent  her  on  a  diplomatic 
mission  to  Venice,  where  she  spoke  with  grace 

340 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

and  dignity  before  the  doge  and  seigniory  on 
a  matter  of  politics.  No  one  questioned  her  mod- 
esty in  doing  so,  and  every  one  praised  her  wise 
and  tactful  eloquence.  She  confesses  to  a  little 
tremulous  apprehension,  but  writes  in  a  naive  and 
artless  way  of  her  cordial  reception  by  the  council- 
ors, also  of  the  magnificent  fetes  given  in  her 
honor. 

In  the  troubled  days  of  Milan,  when  the  aspir- 
ing Lodovico  proved  weak  and  faint-hearted,  it 
was  his  brave  little  wife  who  went  with  him  to  the 
camp,  reconciled  the  differences  among  the  officers, 
and  inspired  the  soldiers  with  her  own  courage  and 
enthusiasm.  In  the  final  crisis,  at  this  time,  it  was 
still  the  young  and  fearless  woman  who  took 
prompt  measures  to  defend  the  city  after  her  hus- 
band had  fled  and  left  her  to  bear  all  the  burdens 
alone.  It  is  not  a  question  here  whether  he  was 
right  or  wrong.  The  morals  of  politics  were  worse 
then,  if  possible,  than  they  are  now,  and  he  had  at 
least  a  powerful  following.  On  a  matter  of  public 
policy  it  is  clear  enough  that  she  could  not  lead  a 
party  in  opposition  to  him.  What  she  thought  we 
do  not  know,  though  her  courage  and  her  swift  re- 
sources showed  the  quality  of  the  woman. 

Many  were  the  sad  hours  this  inconstant  husband 
gave  her,  but  when  she  was  gone  in  the  freshness 
of  her  innocent  youth,  he  put  himself  and  every- 
thing about  him  in  sable,  refused  to  be  comforted, 

341 


THE   LITERARY   COURTS 

and  mourned  her  the  rest  of  his  life.  In  spite  of 
his  wandering  fancies,  which  she  had  the  spirit  to 
curb,  he  said  that  he  loved  her  better  than  himself, 
— which,  if  true,  was  saying  a  great  deal, — and  that 
she  had  been  his  adored  companion  no  less  in  the 
cares  of  State  than  in  his  hours  of  ease.  That  she 
shared  his  cruelties  is  not  supposable  from  anything 
we  know  of  her  character,  but  it  is  certain  that  he 
owed  to  her  taste  and  counsel  much  of  his  reputa- 
tion as  an  enlightened  ruler  who  crowned  his  city 
with  the  glories  of  art. 

With  her  loss  his  star  began  to  wane.  "  When  the 
Duchess  Beatrice  died,  everything  fell  into  ruin. 
The  court,  which  had  been  a  paradise  of  joy,  be- 
came a  dark  and  gloomy  inferno ;  poe^s  and  artists 
were  forced  to  seek  another  place."  So  writes  a 
man  of  letters,  in  the  last  days  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  of  a  woman  of  twenty-one  who  had  tried 
to  make  the  richest  and  worst  court  in  Italy  a  home 
for  literature,  art,  and  all  that  makes  for  the  intel- 
lectual good  of  the  race. 

VII 

IF  I  have  lingered  a  little  over  personal  details  in 
these  brief  sketches,  it  is  the  better  to  show  the 
versatile  character  of  the  women  who  shed  so  much 
luster  on  the  golden  age  of  the  Renaissance.  Of 
the  relative  moral  value  of  these  representative 

342 


AND    PLATONIC   LOVE 

women  of  their  time  I  think  there  is  little  question, 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  age  is  so  persistently 
quoted  to  prove  that  women  degenerate  in  virtue 
as  they  advance  in  intelligence.  That  the  tone  of 
morality  was  very  low,  that  vice  was  scarcely 
frowned  upon,  that  men  in  power  and  out  of  it 
broke  every  commandment  in  the  decalogue  without 
compunction  or  even  taking  the  trouble  to  put  on 
a  veil  of  respectability,  and  that  a  large  class  of 
women  were  swept  into  the  vortex  of  corruption,  is 
true  enough.  But  it  is  also  true  that  the  strongest 
protest  against  this  state  of  affairs  was  made  by 
women,  and  that  the  few  prelates  who  dared  lift 
their  voices  against  the  scandals  in  high  places 
numbered  their  most  zealous  assistants  among 
them.  To  say  nothing  of  the  multitudes  who  cast 
their  jewels  and  ornaments  into  the  flames  at  the 
bidding  of  Savonarola,  and  consecrated  themselves 
to  a  pure  and  simple  if  not  ascetic  life, — all  of  which 
may  be  set  down  to  the  account  of  emotionalism 
rather  than  intelligence, — it  was  the  women  most 
noted  for  talent  and  learning,  whether  princess,  poet, 
or  university  professor,  who  were  most  honored  for 
their  virtues.  The  pure-minded  Contarini  found 
in  Vittoria  Colonna  his  strongest  support  in  a  hope- 
less struggle  against  the  sins  and  corruptions  of  the 
church.  Olympia  Morata  was  a  conspicuous  example 
of  great  intellect  and  great  learning  put  to  the  ser- 
vice of  a  bettered  humanity  at  serious,  indeed  fatal, 

343 


THE   LITERARY    COURTS 

personal  sacrifice.  And  she  was  not  alone.  There 
were  numbers  of  these  women — poets,  scholars,  and 
thinkers — who  lived  spotless  lives  and  worked  for 
the  good  of  their  sex  and  race. 

Of  the  noble  ladies  who  presided  over  the  literary 
courts,  the  few  we  have  recalled  were  among  the 
greatest,  and,  with  one  exception,  it  is  generally 
conceded  that  their  lives  were  without  reproach. 
Others  were  victims  of  a  power  over  which  they 
had  no  control.  It  must  be  remembered  that  these 
women,  however  capable  or  high  in  place,  were 
in  the  last  resort  subject  to  the  will  of  men.  Their 
new  intelligence  had  made  them  helpers  to  be 
respected,  and  tempered  a  little  the  possible 
tyranny  of  their  self-constituted  masters,  but  men 
themselves,  the  nobler  and  wiser,  saw  the  dangers 
in  the  abuse  of  their  own  power.  "  If  women 
corrupt,  they  have  first  been  corrupted  by  their 
age,"  said  Giuliano  de'  Medici,  the  best  and  purest 
of  his  family,  in  one  of  the  conversations  at  Urbino, 
which,  thanks  to  its  women,  had  not  only  the  most 
intelligent  but  the  most  virtuous  court  in  Italy. 

When  a  Borgia  or  some  other  pope  equally 
devoid  of  moral  sense,  who  sits  at  the  head  of 
Christendom  and  directs  its  conscience,  orders  at 
pleasure  the  marriage  and  divorce  of  his  own 
daughter,  or  of  any  other  woman  who  can  serve  his 
political  or  mercenary  ends,  giving  her  no  choice 
and  no  recourse ;  when  Imperias  and  Tullias  pre- 
344 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

side  over  the  salons  of  Rome  because  etiquette  for- 
bids a  pure  and  high-minded  woman  to  live  in  this 
lax  society  of  prelates  and  cardinals,  which  she 
would  be  likely  to  find  neither  safe  nor  agreeable, 
there  is  little  to  be  said  about  the  connection  be- 
tween woman's  intelligence  and  moral  decadence. 
Imperias  and  Tullias  have  lived  in  all  ages,  and 
they  have  flourished  best  where  good  women  were 
the  most  ignorant  and  colorless.  Some  of  them 
have  had  talent  and  esprit.  They  have  sung,  acted, 
danced,  written  sonnets,  affected  learning,  patron- 
ized the  arts,  even  put  on  the  garb  of  virtue  and 
piety  ;  but  they  can  be  no  more  cited  as  representa- 
tives of  the  women  of  centuries  ago  than  the  same 
class  to-day  can  be  taken  as  a  measure  of  our  own 
moral  standards,  which  is  clearly  impossible.  In- 
telligence was  never  a  guaranty  of  morals,  as  the 
mind  can  be  sharpened  for  bad  ends  as  well  as  good 
ones.  It  is  even  possible  that  the  woman  of  edu- 
cation and  strong  mental  fiber  may  be  more  easily 
led  into  the  sins  of  ambition,  but  she  is  far  less 
likely  to  drift  into  the  follies  of  vanity,  passion,  and 
a  weak  will  than  the  ignorant  one  who  has  no 
rational  outlet  for  her  energies  and  her  untempered 
sensibilities.  The  faults,  too,  of  a  luminous  age  are 
seen  in  a  glare  of  light  that  is  wholly  wanting  in 
periods  of  darkness  when  vice  shelters  itself  behind 
closed  doors  upon  which  it  too  often  hangs  the 
drapery  of  virtue. 

345 


THE    LITERARY   COURTS 

It  is  difficult  to  measure  the  intellectual  value  of 
the  women  of  the  Renaissance,  as  their  influence 
went  out  in  a  thousand  rills,  seen  and  unseen,  to 
fertilize  after-ages,  and  not  least  our  own.  There 
were  many  good  writers,  but  no  great  ones,  unless 
we  except  Vittoria  Colonna,  whose  poems,  though 
unequal,  were  of  a  high  and  intrinsic  literary  as  well 
as  moral  quality.  As  an  in  memoriam  her  son- 
nets to  her  husband  are  not  likely  to  die,  and  as 
the  first  collection  of  sacred  poems  her  later  work 
has  a  distinct  and  honorable  place  on  the  world's 
records.  Why  there  were  no  artists  of  note  is  a 
problem  not  easy  to  solve,  as  the  field  is  one  in 
which  women  seem  especially  fitted  to  excel. 
Elisabetta  Sirani  might  have  won  a  high  place  on 
the  roll  of  fame,  as  great  critics  were  struck 
with  her  vigor,  her  grasp  of  large  subjects,  her 
facile  style,  and  her  careful  finish;  but  she  lived 
in  the  decline  of  art,  and  died  at  twenty-six  Wo- 
men were  more  famous  as  scholars,  and  many  of 
them  stood  on  a  level  with  distinguished  men.  Edu- 
cated with  them  in  the  best  schools,  their  tastes 
were  formed  on  the  best  models.  A  lady  who 
converses  or  lectures  before  learned  dons  in 
Latin,  and  writes  the  purest  Greek,  is  not  a  shallow 
pretender,  though  she  may  be  neither  original  nor 
profound.  Nor  do  they  seem  to  have  been  pedants, 
though  much  of  the  phraseology  of  both  men  and 
women  strikes  us  now  as  stilted  and  inflated;  it 

346 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

was  the  style  of  the  day.  No  doubt  there  was 
more  or  less  dilettantism,  which  was  a  weakness 
of  the  time  that  ended  in  the  destruction  of  liter- 
ary values ;  it  is  quite  possible,  too,  that  many  liked 
what  it  was  the  fashion  to  like,  as  they  have  done 
in  all  ages,  without  any  clear  tastes  or  convictions  of 
their  own,  though  this  foible  is  by  no  means  con- 
fined to  women.  That  period,  like  our  own,  had 
its  army  of  pale  imitators  who  follow  in  the  wake 
of  every  movement  that  is  likely  to  reflect  on  them 
a  small  degree  of  honor,  and  in  the  end  sink  its 
finest  standards  in  hopeless  mediocrity. 

But  the  influence  of  a  multitude  of  highly  edu- 
cated and  intelligent  women  is  too  subtle  and  far- 
reaching  to  put  into  definite  terms.  To  trace  it  in 
its  large  results,  even  if  this  were  possible,  would 
take  us  far  beyond  our  present  limits.  It  is  felt  at 
every  moment,  in  the  home,  in  society,  in  amuse- 
ments, in  the  church.  It  directs  the  currents  of 
men's  lives  from  the  starting-point,  it  infolds  them 
like  light,  it  is  a  stimulant  and  an  inspiration. 
But  no  one  knows  precisely  where  it  begins  or 
ends.  This  is  why  it  has  been  so  ignored,  why 
men,  except  in  individual  cases,  have  so  persis- 
tently depreciated  the  qualities  that  opened  for 
them  the  way  to  the  finest  issues. 

The  direct  power  of  the  learned  princesses  of 
the  literary  courts  is  more  readily  seen.  By  virtue 
of  their  position,  as  well  as  their  talents,  they 

347 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

created  a  society,  spread  a  taste  for  things  of  the 
intellect,  and  did  a  great  deal  to  curb  the  vice  and 
cruelty  which  pressed  with  special  severity  on 
their  own  sex.  If  they  could  not  change  the 
drift  of  the  age,  and  were  subject  to  conditions 
which  good  men  were  unable  to  control,  they  tem- 
pered and  modified  them.  The  whole  Platonic 
movement,  which  they  did  so  much  to  foster, 
was  a  protest  against  the  sensualism  that  has  always 
been  their  worst  enemy.  To  sustain  a  spiritual 
cult  in  a  race  that  worshiped,  before  all  things,  ma- 
terial beauty  was  not  easy.  It  had  a  tendency 
always  to  lose  itself  in  phrases  and  mystical  subtle- 
ties, but  it  put  woman  on  a  new  pedestal,  and  social 
life  on  a  higher  plane.  We  have  only  to  note  the 
bacchanalian  revels  of  the  poets,  wits,  and  philoso- 
phers of  Florence,  the  orgies  of  folly,  vulgarity,  and 
sin  which  the  great  Lorenzo  led  and  the  very  wise 
Platonic  Academy  smiled  upon,  to  learn  the  differ- 
ence between  a  lettered  society  of  men  without  the 
tempering  influence  of  high-minded  women,  and  the 
brilliant  circles  we  have  seen  gathered  about  prin- 
cesses of  learning,  refinement,  and  grace,  who  guided 
its  amusements  and  restrained  its  license.  No  woman 
of  conspicuous  virtue  and  ability  has  left  a  perma- 
nent stamp  on  the  social  life  of  Florence.  Clarice, 
the  wife  of  the  versatile  Lorenzo,  had  many  virtues, 
but  she  was  evidently  in  no  sense  a  leader.  Poli- 
ziano  has  no  prejudice  against  learned  women,  as  he 

348 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

falls  in  love  with  the  gifted  and  beautiful  Alessan- 
dra  Scala  and  is  inconsolable  because  she  will  not 
marry  him.  He  also  pays  court  to  Cassandra  Fi- 
delis,  and  corresponds  with  Lucrezia,  the  mother  of 
his  patron,  who  is  finely  educated  and  writes  poe- 
try ;  but  he  is  angry  when  Clarice  interferes  with 
his  manner  of  training  her  children,  "  because  she 
is  a  woman  and  unlettered  " ;  indeed,  he  quarrels 
with  her  about  it  and  goes  away.  She,  in  her  turn, 
finds  fault  with  his  pagan  morals,  and  is  glad  to  be 
rid  of  his  presence,  no  doubt  with  good  reason. 
But  whatever  she  may  have  been  as  a  mother,  she 
seems  to  have  lacked  the  talent  or  the  desire  to 
gather  about  her  a  lettered  society,  and  the  result 
is  seen  in  the  disgraceful  orgies  of  her  husband  and 
his  clever  satellites,  with  no  advantage  to  the  "  un- 
hampered intellects  "  of  these  poets  and  savants,  but 
with  a  decided  disadvantage  to  their  manners  and 
morals. 

It  was  during  the  reign  of  pure,  highly  educated, 
and  able  women  that  the  Italian  courts  reached 
their  highest  point  of  power  and  brilliancy.  When, 
by  the  accident  of  succession,  those  of  smaller 
caliber  and  more  frivolous  tastes  took  the  scepter, 
they  invariably  declined  and  lost  their  prestige. 

It  is  quite  superfluous  to  cast  a  mantle  of  charity, 
or  any  mantle  whatever,  over  the  crimes  of  the  Re- 
naissance, but  I  have  tried  in  a  small  way  to  recall 
another  side  of  its  abounding  life,  which  had  its 

349 


THE   LITERARY   COURTS 

roots  largely  in  the  character  of  its  forceful  and 
intelligent  women.  The  age  that  gave  us  a  Bianca 
Capello  gave  us  also  a  Vittoria  Colonna.  The  one  has 
long  since  been  consigned  to  the  fitful  oblivion  of 
infamy ;  the  other  holds  her  imperishable  place 
among  the  stars,  still  lighting  the  sorrowful  and 
world-weary  with  her  messages  of  love  and  hope. 
The  centuries  of  beauty  and  sin  when  men  like  to 
say  that  woman  lost  her  birthright  of  virtue — a 
birthright  which  they  never  ceased  to  invade  from 
their  own  stronghold  of  power — saw  her  transfig- 
ured by  the  imagination  of  Michelangelo  into  the 
immortal  sibyls  who  sit  side  by  side  with  the  prophets 
in  the  ceiling  of  the  Sistine  Chapel,  pure  and  passion- 
less, with  the  brooding  eyes  that  long  ago  fathomed 
all  the  secrets  of  a  suffering  world,  read  in  the 
mystic  leaves  the  records  of  nations  still  unborn, 
and  saw  from  afar  the  light  of  the  ages — unchang- 
ing types  of  the  wisdom  and  divination  that  lie  in 
the  feminine  soul.  It  saw,  too,  the  Virgins  of  Fra 
Angelico,  unfading  symbols  of  purity  as  of  angelic 
sweetness ;  and  the  Madonnas  of  Raphael,  looking 
wistfully  out  of  their  repose  with  a  ray  of  celestial 
love  in  their  eyes  and  a  smile  of  eternal  beauty  on 
their  lips. 

VIII 

IT  is  no  part  of  the  plan  here  to  trace  the  causes 
of  the  decadence  in  which  men  lost  their  liberty  of 

350 


AND    PLATONIC    LOVE 

thought  and  women  their  position.  Greed  of 
money,  greed  of  power,  love  of  pleasure,  the  growth 
of  luxury,  and  the  low  ideals  that  surely  follow  in 
their  train,  brought  their  logical  results.  The  flower 
of  estheticism  that  expands  in  the  rich  splendors 
of  its  ripe  perfection  verges  already  toward  its 
dissolution.  Then  the  Roman  Catholic  reaction, 
which  forbade  men  to  think,  sent  women  back  to 
prayers  and  seclusion,  as  a  business  instead  of  a  re- 
source ;  it  was  becoming,  and  quite  safe.  But  the 
Italian  princesses  had  set  a  fashion  of  knowledge, 
and  of  putting  society  on  an  intellectual  plane,  with 
what  trimming  of  beauty  and  adornment  of  man- 
ners they  could  add.  The  irrepressible  and  many- 
gifted  Marguerite  of  Navarre  took  it  up  with  vari- 
ous changes  and  originalities  of  her  own.  The 
clever  Frenchwomen  saw  their  opportunity,  and 
when  the  courts  were  sunk  in  vice  and  inanities, 
they  drew  out  of  the  past  its  secret  of  social  power, 
and  created  the  literary  salon,  which  was  one  of  the 
glories  of  the  golden  age  of  France.  The  wave  of 
knowledge  which  had  raised  the  Italian  women  so 
high,  and  then  so  strangely  receded,  culminated 
again  in  the  intellectual  brilliancy  and  unparalleled 
influence  of  the  Frenchwomen  of  the  eighteenth 
century.  The  rise  and  fall  of  this  movement  and 
its  central  figures  I  have  treated  quite  fully  else- 
where. Again  the  wave  receded,  with  the  coming 
of  the  republic,  to  revive  under  other  forms  in  our 

351 


THE    LITERARY    COURTS 

own  country  and  our  own  day.  Will  another  de- 
cadence follow?  The  future  alone  can  tell,  and  no 
prophetic  sibyl  has  read  the  secret  of  that  future. 
Possibly  it  will  depend  largely  upon  the  poise  and 
sanity  of  women  themselves. 


352 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 


SALON   AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 
* 

•    New  Mania  for  Knowledge    • 
.    Women's  Clubs  as  Central  Points    • 

•  Parallel  between  the  Literary  Salon  and  the 

Woman's  Club   • 

•  French  and  American  Women   « 
Attitude  of  Anglo-Saxon  Men  toward  Women 

•    Puritan  Gospel  of  Feminine  Liberty    • 

The  Woman's  Club  not  a  School  of  Manners 

•    Its  Moral  Value    • 

•  Its  Social  and  Intellectual  Value   • 

•   Imitation  Culture   • 
•   Special  Distinction  of  American  Women   • 

•   Their  Foibles   • 
•    Multiplication  of  Clubs   • 
Warning  in  the  Excesses  of  the  Later  Salons    • 

•  Tendency  to  Separate  Men  and  Women    • 

.    The  Charm  of  Social  Life    • 
.    Wisdom  of  Consulting  the  Past    • 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S   CLUB 


T  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  en- 
tire present  generation  of  women  is 
going  to  school.  Infancy  cultivates 
its  mind  in  the  kindergarten,  while 
the  woman  of  threescore  seeks  con- 
solation and  diversion  in  clubs  or  a  university  course, 
instead  of  resigning  herself  to  seclusion  and  prayers, 
or  the  chimney-corner  and  knitting,  after  the  manner 
of  her  ancestors.  Even  our  amusements  carry  in- 
struction in  solution.  Childhood  takes  in  knowledge 
through  its  toys  and  games ;  the  debutante  dis- 
cusses Plato  or  Coquelin  in  the  intervals  of  the 
waltz  ;  youth  and  maturity  alike  find  their  pleasure 
in  papers,  talks,  plays,  music,  and  recitations.  In 
these  social  menus  everything  is  included,  from  a 
Greek  drama  or  an  Oriental  faith  to  Wagner  and 
the  latest  theory  of  economics.  We  have  Kipling 

355 


SALON    AND   WOMAN'S   CLUB 

at  breakfast,  Rostand  or  Maeterlinck  at  luncheon, 
and  the  new  Utopia  at  dinner.  After  a  brilliant 
day  of  being  adored  and  talked  about,  Browning 
has  been  duly  labeled  and  put  away,  but  Homer 
classes  and  Dante  classes  still  alternate  with  lectures 
on  the  Impressionists  or  the  Decadents.  In  this 
rage  for  knowledge,  science  and  philosophy  are  not 
forgotten.  Fashion  ranges  the  field  from  occultism 
to  agnosticism,  from  the  qualities  of  a  microbe  to  the 
origin  of  man.  To-day  it  searches  the  problems 
of  this  world,  to-morrow  the  mysteries  of  the  next. 
There  is  nothing  too  large  or  too  abstruse  for  the 
eager,  questioning  spirit  that  seeks  to  know  all 
things,  or  at  least  to  skim  the  surface  of  all  things. 

Nor  is  this  energetic  pursuit  of  intelligence  con- 
fined to  towns  or  cities.  Go  into  the  remote  village 
or  >  hamlet,  and  you  will  find  the  inevitable  club, 
where  the  merits  of  the  last  novel,  the  labor  prob- 
lem, the  political  situation,  the  silver  question, 
the  Boer  war,  and  the  state  of  the  universe  gener- 
ally, are  canvassed  by  a  circle  of  women  as  freely, 
and  with  as  keen  a  zest,  as  the  virtues  and  short- 
comings of  their  neighbors  were  talked  over  by 
their  grandmothers  —  possibly  may  be  still  by  a 
few  of  their  benighted  contemporaries. 

In  its  extent,  this  mania  for  things  of  the  intellect 
is  phenomenal.  One  might  imagine  that  we  were 
rapidly  becoming  a  generation  of  pedants.  Perhaps 
we  are  saved  from  it  by  the  perpetual  change  that 

356 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

gives  nothing  time  to  crystallize.  The  central 
points  of  all  this  movement  are  the  women's  clubs, 
of  which  the  social  element  is  a  conspicuous  feature, 
and  we  take  our  learning  so  comfortably  diluted  and 
pleasantly  varied  that  it  ceases  to  be  formidable, 
though  on  the  side  of  learning  it  may  leave  much 
to  be  desired. 

But  it  is  notably  in  this  mingling  of  literature  and 
life  that  women  have  always  found  their  greatest 
intellectual  influence,  and  the  club  is  not  likely  to 
prove  an  exception.  The  rapidity  of  its  growth  is 
equaled  only  by  the  extent  of  its  range.  Of  wo- 
men's clubs  there  is  literally  no  end,  and  they  are 
yet  in  their  vigorous  youth.  We  have  literary 
clubs,  and  art  clubs,  and  musical  clubs ;  clubs  for 
science,  and  clubs  for  philanthropy ;  parliamentary 
clubs,  and  suffrage  clubs,  and  anti-suffrage  clubs — 
clubs  of  every  variety  and  every  grade,  from  the 
luncheon  club,  with  its  dilettante  menu,  and  the 
more  pretentious  chartered  club,  that  aims  at  mas- 
tering a  scheme  of  the  world,  to  the  simple  work- 
ing-girls' club,  which  is  content  with  something 
less :  and  all  in  the  sacred  name  of  culture.  They 
multiply,  federate,  hold  conventions,  organize  con- 
gresses, and  really  form  a  vast  educational  system 
that  is  fast  changing  old  ideals  and  opening  possi- 
bilities of  which  no  prophetic  eye  can  see  the  end. 
That  they  have  marvelously  raised  the  average 
standard  of  intelligence  cannot  be  questioned,  nor 

357 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

that  they  have  brought  out  a  large  number  of  able 
and  interesting  women  who  have  generously  taken 
upon  themselves  not  only  their  own  share  of  the 
work  of  the  world,  but  a  great  deal  more. 

One  can  hardly  overrate  the  value  of  an  institu- 
tion which  has  given  light  and  an  upward  impulse 
to  so  many  lives,  and  changed  the  complexion  of 
society  so  distinctly  for  the  better.  But  it  may  be 
worth  while  to  ask  if  the  women  of  to-day,  with 
their  splendid  initiative  and  boundless  aspirations, 
are  not  going  a  little  too  fast,  getting  entangled  in 
too  much  machinery,  losing  their  individuality  in 
masses,  assuming  more  responsibility  than  they  can 
well  carry.  Why  is  it  that  lines  too  deep  for  har- 
monious thought  are  so  early  writing  themselves 
on  the  strong,  tense,  mobile,  and  delicate  faces  of 
American  women?  Why  is  it  that  the  pure  joy  of 
life  seems  to  be  lost  in  the  restless  and  insatiable 
passion  for  multitudes,  so  often  thinly  disguised  as 
love  for  knowledge,  which  is  not  seldom  little  more 
than  the  shell  and  husk  of  things?  Is  the  pursuit 
of  culture  degenerating  into  a  pursuit  of  clubs,  and 
are  we  taking  for  ourselves  new  taskmasters  more 
pitiless  than  the  old  ?  "  The  emancipation  of  wo- 
man is  fast  becoming  her  slavery,"  said  one  who 
was  caught  in  the  whirl  of  the  social  machinery  and 
could  find  no  point  of  repose.  We  pride  ourselves 
on  our  liberty ;  but  the  true  value  of  liberty  is  to 
leave  people  free  from  a  pressure  that  prevents 

358 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

their  fullest  growth.  What  do  we  gain  if  we  simply- 
exchange  one  tyranny  for  another?  Apart  from 
the  fact  that  the  finest  flowers  of  culture  do  not 
spring  from  a  soil  that  is  constantly  turned,  any 
more  than  they  do  from  a  soil  that  is  not  turned  at 
all,  it  is  a  question  of  human  limitations,  of  living  so 
as  to  continue  to  live,  of  growing  so  as  to  continue 
to  grow.  Nor  is  it  simply  a  matter  of  individuals. 
Societies,  too,  exhaust  themselves ;  and  those  which 
reach  an  exaggerated  growth  in  a  day  are  apt  to 
perish  in  a  day.  It  is  not  the  first  time  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  world  that  there  has  been  a  brilliant 
reign  of  intelligence  among  women,  though  perhaps 
there  was  never  one  so  widely  spread  as  now. 
Why  have  they  ended  in  more  or  less  violent  reac- 
tions ?  We  may  not  be  able  to  answer  the  question 
satisfactorily,  but  it  gives  us  food  for  reflection. 

II 

THE  most  remarkable,  though  by  no  means  the 
only,  precedent  we  have  for  a  social  organization 
planned  by  women  on  a  basis  of  the  intellect,  was 
the  French  literary  salon  of  the  seventeenth  and 
eighteenth  centuries.  These  women  had  relatively 
as  much  intelligence  as  we  have,  and  possibly  more 
power.  It  must  be  taken  into  consideration  that  they 
were  remote  from  us  by  race,  religion,  and  political 
regime,  as  well  as  by  several  generations  of  time,  and 

359 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

that  their  spirit,  aims,  and  methods  were  as  unlike 
ours  as  their  points  of  view.  But  that  which  they 
did  on  traditional  lines  and  a  small  scale  we  are 
doing  on  new  lines  and  a  very  large  scale.  Their 
intellectual  life  found  its  outlet  in  the  salon,  as  ours 
does  in  the  club.  These  equally  represent  the  ac- 
tive influence  of  women  in  their  respective  ages. 
Both  have  resulted  in  a  mania  for  knowledge,  a 
change  of  ideals,  a  radical  revolution  in  social  life, 
and  an  unprecedented  increase  in  the  authority  of 
women.  As  they  have  certain  tendencies  and  dan- 
gers in  common,  it  may  be  of  interest  to  trace  a 
few  points  of  resemblance  and  contrast  between 
them ;  also  to  glance  at  the  elements  which  have 
gone  into  the  club  and  are  making  it  so  considera- 
ble a  factor  in  American  life. 

The  salon,  like  the  club,  was  founded  and  led  by 
clever  women  in  the  interests  of  culture,  both  liter- 
ary and  social ;  but,  unlike  the  club,  it  was  devoted 
to  bringing  into  relief  the  talents  of  men.  The  dif- 
ference, so  far  as  manners  are  concerned,  is  a  fun- 
damental one.  It  would  never  have  occurred  to 
the  women  of  that  age  to  band  together  for  self- 
improvement.  If  they  had  given  the  matter  a 
thought,  it  would  not  have  seemed  to  them  likely  to 
come  in  that  way ;  still  less  would  it  have  occurred 
to  them  that  this  mode  of  doing  things  could  be  of 
any  service  in  bettering  the  world  or  their  own  po- 
sition. Rousseau,  who  wrote  so  many  fine  phrases 

360 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

about  liberty,  and  left  women  none  at  all,  not  even 
the  small  privilege  of  protesting  against  injustice, 
said  that  they  were  "  made  to  please  men  "  ;  and  it 
is  safe  to  say  that  the  Frenchwomen  had  no  scheme 
of  life  apart  from  men,  until  they  were  ready  to  go 
into  seclusion  for  prayer  and  penance  and  prepara- 
tion for  the  next  world.  They  accepted  the  fact 
that  men  had  the  ordering  of  affairs,  and  that  they 
could  make  their  own  influence  felt  only  by  acting 
through  them.  "  What  is  the  difference  whether 
women  rule,  or  the  rulers  are  guided  by  women?" 
said  Aristotle.  "  If  the  power  is  in  their  hands,  the 
result  is  the  same."  It  was  simply  a  question  of 
the  best  way  of  ruling  the  rulers.  In  this  case  the 
rulers  were  of  a  race  that  has  not  only  a  great  lik- 
ing for  women  in  the  concrete,  but  a  great  admira- 
tion for  woman  in  the  abstract.  So  long  as  her 
gifts  are  consecrated  to  his  interest  and  pleasure, 
the  Frenchman  never  objects  to  them — indeed,  he 
is  disposed  to  pay  much  homage  to  them.  In  the 
interest  of  some  one  else,  or  even  in  her  own,  it  is 
another  matter.  They  might  be  inconvenient.  But 
in  this  new  kingdom  of  the  salon  he  was  quite  will- 
ing to  accord  her  the  supremacy,  since  she  gave 
him  the  place  of  honor  and  furnished  an  effective 
background  for  his  talents  without  too  much  parad- 
ing her  own.  He  had  only  to  shine  and  be 
applauded.  What  more  could  he  desire? 

Naturally,  under  such  conditions,  among  the  first 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

of  her  arts  was  that  of  making  things  agreeable.  If 
she  had  any  fine  moral  lessons  to  inculcate,  she 
gave  them  in  the  form  of  sugared  pills  that  were 
pleasant  to  take.  In  her  category  of  virtues  the, 
social  ones  were  uppermost;  but  they  were  the 
means  to  an  end,  and  this  end  must  not  be  lost 
sight  of.  Her  special  mission  was  to  correct  coarse 
manners  and  bad  morals,  as  well  as  to  secure  due 
recognition  for  talent;  but  she  went  about  it  in  her 
own  way.  It  may  be  said  that,  as  a  rule,  the 
Frenchwoman  is  much  less  interested  in  what  is 
done  than  in  how  it  is  done.  In  the  early  days  of 
the  salons  she  concerned  herself  little,  if  at  all,  with 
theories  and  grave  social  problems;  but  she  did 
concern  herself  very  much  with  questions  of  taste 
and  manners,  the  refinements  of  language  and  liter- 
ature, the  subtleties  of  sentiment,  the  dignity  of 
converse  between  men  and  women.  Nor  did  she 
bring  to  these  questions  an  untrained  mind.  If  she 
did  not  make  so  much  of  a  business  of  improving  it 
as  we  do,  she  did  not  neglect  private  study  and  the 
reading  of  the  best  books,  which,  though  few,  were 
undiluted.  "  It  gives  dull  colors  to  the  mind  to 
have  no  taste  for  solid  reading,"  said  Mme.  de  Se- 
vigne,  who  delighted  in  Montaigne  and  Pascal, 
Tacitus  and  Vergil,  with  various  other  classics 
which  are  not  exactly  the  food  for  frivolity.  These 
women  did  not  always  spell  correctly,  and  would 
have  declined  altogether  to  write  a  paper  on  the 

362 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

"  Science  of  Government "  or  the  "  Philosophy  of 
Confucius," — subjects  which  the  school-girls  of  to- 
day feel  quite  competent  to  treat, — but  they  showed 
surprising  clearness  and  penetration  in  their  criti- 
cisms of  literature  and  manners.  The  coteries  which 
formed  an  audience  for  Corneille,  sympathized  with 
the  exalted  thought  of  Pascal  and  Arnauld,  helped 
to  modify  and  polish  the  maxims  of  La  Rochefou- 
cauld,— as  those  which,  a  century  or  so  later,  dis- 
cussed the  tragedies  of  Voltaire  or  the  philosophy  of 
Rousseau  with  men  of  genius  who  would  have  had 
small  patience  with  platitudes, — needed  no  lowering 
of  levels  to  suit  their  taste  or  comprehension.  They 
were  held  firmly  to  fine  literary  ideals.  All  they 
asked  was  simplicity  of  statement,  and  this  was 
made  a  fashion,  to  the  lasting  benefit  of  French 
literature. 

It  is  true  that  the  movement  of  the  salon  was  in 
the  direction  of  a  brilliant  social  as  well  as  a  brilliant 
intellectual  life ;  but  to  fuse  such  varied  materials, 
to  unite  men  of  action  and  men  of  letters,  nobles 
and  philosophers,  statesmen  and  poets,  people 
within  the  pale  and  people  outside  of  it,  in  a  har- 
monious society,  presided  over  by  women  who  set 
up  new  standards  and  new  codes  of  manners,  meant 
more  than  intelligence,  more  than  social  charm.  It 
involved  diplomacy  of  a  high  order,  which  implies 
flexibility,  penetration,  and  the  subtler  qualities  of 
the  intellect,  as  well  as  tact,  sympathy,  and  know- 

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SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

ledge  of  men.  This  was  notably  an  outgrowth  of 
the  salon,  where  women  owed  much  of  their  influ- 
ence to  a  quick  perception  of  the  fine  shades  of 
temperament,  genius,  interest,  and  passion  through 
which  the  world  is  swayed.  The  result  of  such 
training  was  a  mind  singularly  lucid,  great  adminis- 
trative ability,  and  a  character  full  of  the  intangible 
quality  that  we  call  charm.  If  it  was  a  trifle  weak 
as  to  moral  fiber,  this  may  be  largely  laid  to  the 
standards  of  the  time,  which  were  not  ours.  Mme. 
du  Deffand  put  the  philosophy  of  her  age  and  race 
into  an  epigram  when  she  said  that "  the  virtues  are 
superior  to  the  sentiments,  but  not  so  agreeable." 
Both  temperament  and  education  led  these  women 
toward  Hellenic  ideals.  The  latter-day  woman  is 
inclined  to  look  upon  their  methods  as  trivial  and 
their  attitude  as  humiliating ;  but,  whatever  we  may 
think  of  their  point  of  view,  we  must  admit  their 
masterly  ability  in  making  vital  changes  for  the  bet- 
ter, and  attaining  a  position  of  influence  which  we 
have  hardly  yet  secured  for  ourselves.  They  did 
much  more  than  form  society,  create  a  code  of 
manners,  and  set  the  fashions,  which  we  are  apt  to 
look  upon  as  their  special  province.  They  refined 
the  language,  stimulated  talent,  gave  fresh  life  to 
literature,  exacted  a  new  respect  for  women,  and 
held  political  as  well  as  social  and  academic  honors 
in  their  hands. 

If  they  sometimes  dipped  into  affairs  of  state  in 

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SALON   AND   WOMAN'S   CLUB 

support  of  their  friends,  and  with  a  too  incidental 
reference  to  the  interests  of  the  State,  I  am  not  sure 
that  even  the  men  of  our  own  time  are  absolutely 
free  from  a  personal  tinge  of  the  same  sort,  with- 
out the  saving  grace  of  altruism.  At  all  events,  in 
the  pursuit  of  a  better  order  of  things,  they  took 
the  pleasant  path  around  the  mountain  rather  than 
the  doubtful  and  untrodden  path  over  it,  which, 
since  they  could  not  go  over  it  if  they  tried,  was,  to 
my  thinking,  the  wiser  way. 

Ill 

BUT  other  times,  other  conditions  and  other 
methods.  It  was  a  long  step  from  these  fine  ladies 
in  rouge  and  ruffles  to  the  earnest  American  women 
of  high  aims  and  simpler  lives  who,  not  far  from 
thirty  years  ago,  began  seriously  to  group  them- 
selves in  clubs  for  social  fellowship  and  mental 
culture.  The  difference  is  equally  marked,  now  that 
these  gatherings  are  numbered  by  thousands.  It 
is  more  vital  than  a  variation  in  manners,  as  it  lies 
in  the  character  of  the  two  races. 

The  club  had  no  prestige  of  a  class  behind  it,  and 
concerned  itself  little  with  traditions.  It  was  a  far 
more  radical  departure  from  the  old  order  than  the 
salon,  which,  though  it  established  a  new  social 
basis,  did  it  through  delicate  compromises  that  left 
the  aristocratic  spirit  intact.  It  was  only  in  its 

365 


SALON    AND   WOMAN'S   CLUB 

later  days  that  the  iconoclasts  invaded  it,  to  some 
extent,  and  made  it  a  sort  of  hotbed  for  the  propa- 
gation of  democratic  theories  which  seemed  quite 
harmless  until,  one  day,  a  spark  set  them  ablaze, 
and  the  generation  that  had  played  with  them  was 
swept  to  destruction.  The  club  was  democratic 
from  the  foundation.  It  did  not  revolve  round 
men  of  letters,  or  men  of  any  class.  There  was  no 
man,  or  influence  of  man,  behind  it — no  man  in  the 
vista.  It  does  not  aim  to  bring  into  relief  the  tal- 
ents of  men,  but  the  talents  of  women  who  had  come, 
perhaps,  to  wish  a  little  glory  on  their  own  account. 
There  was  no  longer  an  outlet  for  their  activities  in 
the  salon,  which  belonged  neither  to  the  genius  of 
the  age  nor  the  genius  of  the  race.  The  Anglo- 
Saxon  man  is  not  preeminently  a  social  being,  and 
though  he  has  not  been  entirely  neglected  in  the 
matter  of  vanity  or  personal  susceptibility,  he  has 
rather  less  of  either  than  his  Gallic  compeers.  Nor 
is  he  so  amenable,  either  by  temperament  or  train- 
ing, to  the  delicate  arts  that  make  social  life  agree- 
able. Half  a  century  or  so  ago,  the  American,  in 
whose  chivalrous  regard  for  women  we  take  so 
much  pride,  was  in  the  habit  of  saying  many  fine 
things  about  them  in  what  he  was  pleased  to  call 
the  sphere  God  had  assigned  them ;  indeed,  he 
went  so  far  as  to  offer  a  great  deal  of  theoretical 
incense  to  them  as  household  divinities,  with  special 
and  very  human  limitations  as  to  privileges.  But 

366 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

he  frowned  distinctly  upon  any  intellectual  tastes  or 
aspirations.  His  attitude  was  tersely  and  modestly 
expressed  in  Tennyson's  couplet : 

She  knows  but  matters  of  the  house, 
And  he,  he  knows  a  thousand  things. 

This  master  of  diverse  knowledge  would  have 
smiled  at  the  notion  of  finding  either  profit  or 
amusement  in  meeting  women  for  the  purpose  of 
conversation  on  the  plane  of  the  intellect.  The  few 
rare  exceptions  only  emphasize  this  fact.  "  A 
woman,  if  she  have  the  misfortune  of  knowing  any- 
thing, should  conceal  it  as  well  as  she  can,"  said 
Jane  Austen.  We  are  far  from  that  time ;  but  men 
of  affairs  even  now  find  literary  talks  in  the  draw- 
ing-room tiresome,  and  persistently  stay  away. 
Thoughts,  too,  had  become  a  commodity  with  a 
market  value,  and  men  of  letters  no  longer  found 
their  pleasure  or  interest  in  wasting  them  on  lim- 
ited coteries.  They  preferred  sending  them  out  to 
a  larger  audience,  at  so  much  a  page,  while  they 
smoked  and  chatted  more  at  their  ease  among 
themselves  at  their  clubs.  Whether  they  did  not 
find  women  inspiring, — which,  under  such  condi- 
tions, is  quite  possible, — or  did  not  care  to  be  in- 
spired in  that  way,  the  role  of  inspirer  was  clearly 
ended.  The  few  efforts  to  take  up  the  fallen  scepter 
of  the  salon  proved  futile  in  intellectual  prestige, 
though  they  may  have  served  to  while  away  some 

367 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

pleasant  hours.  A  society  based  upon  wealth  with- 
out the  traditions  of  culture  is  apt  to  smother  in 
accessories  the  delicacy  of  insight  and  the  esprit 
which  were  the  life  of  the  salons.  On  the  other 
hand,  those  who  pose  as  apostles  of  plain  living 
and  high  thinking  make  the  mistake  of  ignoring  the 
imagination  altogether,  and  too  often  serve  their 
feasts  of  reason  without  any  sauces  at  all,  which 
fact  should  probably  be  laid  to  the  account  of  the 
race  that  takes  its  diversion  as  seriously  as  its  work. 
After  all,  one  cannot  say  "  Let  us  have  esprit," 
and  have  it,  any  more  than  one  can  say,  "  Let  us 
have  charm,"  and  put  it  on  like  a  garment. 

But  the  women  of  forty  or  fifty  years  ago  lacked 
much  more  than  a  social  outlet  for  their  talents  and 
aspirations.  They  had  no  outlet  of  any  sort  beyond 
charity  and  the  fireside.  The  Frenchwomen  had 
little,  if  any,  more  real  freedom,  possibly  not  so 
much  in  some  directions :  but  rank  brought  them 
deference  and  consideration ;  the  age  of  chivalry 
had  put  them  on  a  pedestal.  It  may  have  been  a 
bit  theoretical,  but  an  illusory  power  is  better  than 
none  at  all,  as  it  has  a  certain  prestige.  If  they 
were  queens  without  a  very  substantial  kingdom, 
they  had,  at  least,  the  privileges,  as  well  as  the 
responsibilities,  of  high  positions,  and  shone  with 
something  more  than  reflected  glory.  Then  their 
talents  were  too  valuable  to  be  ignored,  as  they 
were  the  best  of  purveyors  to  Gallic  ambitions.  The 

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SALON   AND   WOMAN'S    CLUB 

Roman  Church,  too,  was  far-seeing  when  it  provided 
an  outlet  for  their  surplus  energies  and  emotions. 
If  they  had  no  fireside  of  their  own,  or  the  world 
pressed  heavily  upon  them,  they  could  retire  from 
it,  and  hope  for  places  of  influence,  even  of  power, 
in  some  of  the  various  religious  orders.  In  any 
case,  there  were  peace  and  a  dignified  refuge.  But 
it  is  a  noteworthy  fact  that  the  Reformation  left  to 
women  all  the  sacrifices  of  their  religion,  and  none 
of  its  outward  honors  or  consolations.  If  the  phi- 
losophers had  no  message  of  freedom  for  them,  still 
less  was  it  found  on  Puritan  soil.  "  Women  are 
frail,  impatient,  feeble,  and  foolish,"  said  John 
Knox,  who  was  far  from  being  a  model  of  patience 
himself,  and  seems  to  have  been  singularly  swayed 
by  these  weak,  inconsequent  creatures  above  whom 
he  asserts  that  man  is  placed  "  as  God  is  above  the 
angels."  Milton  has  left  us  in  no  doubt  as  to  his 
position  regarding  them : 

My  author  and  dispenser,  what  thou  bidst 
Unargued  I  obey :  so  God  ordains ; 
God  is  thy  law,  thou  mine :  to  know  no  more 
Is  woman's  happiest  knowledge  and  her  praise. 

Such  was  the  Puritan  gospel  of  liberty  as  applied  to 
women.  John  Knox  and  Milton  joined  in  the 
chorus  that  glorified  their  vassalage,  while  Calvin 
added  a  cordial  refrain,  with  'a  prudent  reservation 
as  to  queens  and  princesses. 

24  369 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  upon  this  phase  of  a  past 
the  ideals  of  which  are  as  dead  to  us  as  the  god- 
desses of  Greece  and  the  heroines  of  the  Nibe- 
lungenlied.  It  has  been  sufficiently  emphasized 
already,  and  concerns  us  here  only  as  it  shows  us 
the  spirit  under  which  our  grandmothers  were  born 
and  bred.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  they  were  a 
wise,  strong  race,  rearing  thinkers  and  statesmen 
who  have  left  few  worthy  successors,  though  they 
did  not  spend  much  time  in  discussing  the  best 
methods  of  training  children,  were  better  versed  in 
domestic  than  social  economics,  and  doubtless  had 
misty  ideas  about  Buddhism  and  the  ultimate  des- 
tiny of  Woman.  It  may  be  superfluous,  also,  to 
say  that  many  of  them  had  occasion  to  think  little 
of  their  restrictions,  and  would  have  resented  the 
suggestion  that  they  had  any  which  were  not  good 
for  them,  if  not  positively  desirable.  Limitations, 
even  hardships,  do  not  necessarily  imply  misery. 
People  are  curiously  flexible,  and  get  a  sort  of  hap- 
piness from  trying  to  fit  themselves  to  conditions 
which,  though  unpleasant,  are  inevitable.  Then, 
conditions  are  not  always  hard  because  they  have 
unlimited  possibilities  in  that  direction.  One  may 
even  wear  a  chain  and  ball  quite  comfortably  so 
long  as  one  stands  still,  or  if  the  chain  be  a  silken 
one  and  the  ball  cast  in  pleasant  places.  The  diffi- 
culty is  that  one  does  not  always  wish  to  stand  still ; 
nor  is  it  always  possible,  whatever  the  inclination 

370 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

may  be.  The  march  of  events  is  irresistible,  and 
one  is  often  forced  to  a  change  of  position  to  escape 
being  trampled  upon.  Besides,  in  a  society  that  is 
based  upon  the  right  of  people  to  do  as  they  choose 
within  certain  very  flexible  limits,  one  half  is  not 
likely  to  continue  to  do,  without  a  protest,  what  the 
other  half  says  it  ought  to  do,  when  it  is  compelled 
to  take  its  full  share  of  burdens  and  rather  more 
than  its  full  share  of  sacrifices,  without  any  choice 
as  to  cakes  and  ale.  These  daughters  of  liberty 
held  no  longer  the  places  of  honor  accorded  to 
rank,  and  were  not  only  without  visible  dignities  of 
any  kind,  except  as  the  palest  of  satellites,  but  were 
largely,  if  not  altogether,  excluded  from  the  intel- 
lectual life  of  their  husbands.  They  were  told  to 
be  content  with  the  dignity  of  maternity,  while 
they  were  virtually  shut  out  from  the  things  that 
consecrate  maternity.  It  was  under  such  conditions 
that  the  woman's  club  was  born.  Men  had  already 
set  up  clubs  of  their  own,  and  women  had  no  choice 
but  to  do  the  same  thing,  or  drift  into  the  hopeless 
position  of  their  respectable  Athenian  sisters  of  the 
classic  age,  who  lived  in  fashionable  but  ignorant 
seclusion,  while  their  brilliant  husbands  sought  more 
congenial  companionship  elsewhere. 

But  women  did  not  plan  a  club  for  amusement, 
as  men  have  usually  done :  they  planned  it  for  men- 
tal improvement.  It  was  not  without  a  prophecy 
of  the  coming  time  that  the  characters  of  ourgrand- 

371 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

mothers  were  trained  in  so  severe  a  school.  They 
were  the  reverse  of  pleasure-loving,  and  took  even 
their  diversions  seriously.  The  central  point  of 
their  lives  was  an  inexorable  sense  of  duty.  Its 
twin  trait  was  energy.  With  a  radical  change  of 
ideals  their  daughters  did  not  lose  these  traits.  A 
religious  devotion  to  one  set  of  aims  was  simply 
transferred  to  another.  The  road  to  their  new  Uto- 
pia was  knowledge.  All  things  would  come  in  its 
train  —  culture,  independence,  happiness,  the  power 
to  help  a  suffering  world.  It  was  this  leaven  of  Puri- 
tan traditions  which  gave  the  club  an  element  that 
was  not  found  in  the  salon.  The  American  woman 
may  lack  a  little  of  that  elusive  quality,  half  sensibil- 
ity, half  wit,  which  makes  so  much  of  the  French- 
woman's charm  ;  she  may  lack,  too,  her  perfection  of 
tact,  her  inborn  genius  for  form  and  measure :  but 
she  has  what  the  Frenchwoman  has  not — something 
that  belongs  to  a  race  in  which  the  ethical  over- 
shadows the  artistic.  It  is  devotion  to  principles 
rather  than  to  persons,  to  essentials  rather  than  to 
forms.  Her  pursuit  of  knowledge  may  often  be 
superficial,  from  the  immensity  of  the  field  she  lays 
out  for  herself;  but  her  aims  are  serious,  and  lead 
her  toward  moral  and  sociological  questions,  rather 
than  matters  of  sentiment  and  taste. 

The  woman's  club  is  not  a  school  of  manners,  and 
concerns  itself  little  with  the  fine  art  of  living.  It 
claims  to  instruct,  not  to  amuse —  or,  rather,  it  seeks 

372 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

amusement  in  that  way ;  and  it  is  more  interested 
in  doing  things  than  in  the  modes  of  doing  them. 
It  does  not  rely  upon  diplomacy  to  gain  its  ends, 
but  upon  the  wisdom  and  justice  of  the  ends,  ap- 
pealing to  the  reason  instead  of  the  imagination.  It 
also  deals  more  with  masses  than  with  individuals. 
No  doubt,  the  necessity  of  going  outside  the  realm 
of  personal  feeling  in  managing  public  or  semi-pub- 
lic affairs  helps  to  give  the  poise  and  self-command 
which  go  far  toward  offsetting  the  intensity  of  tem- 
perament that  has  always  made  the  discussion  of 
vital  questions  so  perilous  in  gatherings  of  women, 
though  we  have  occasion  enough  to  know  that  wis- 
dom and  sanity  do  not  invariably  preside  at  gath- 
erings of  men,  even  supposably  wise  ones.  The 
qualities  fostered  by  the  club  are  energy,  earnest- 
ness, independence,  versatility,  and — not  exactly 
intellectual  conscience,  which  implies  traditional 
standards,  but  a  sense  of  intellectual  duty  that  is 
not  quite  the  same  thing.  All  this  is  remote  from 
the  spirit  of  the  salon,  with  its  social  codes  and  con- 
ventions, its  graceful  amenities,  its  sparkling  wit,  its 
play  of  sentiment,  its  diplomatic  reserves,  and  its 
clear  intelligence  working  through  endless  private 
channels  toward  a  new  order  of  things.  It  points 
to  the  club,  not  as  a  conservator  of  social  traditions, 
or  a  creator  of  social  standards,  or  a  tribunal  of  criti- 
cism, but  as  a  literary  and  political  training-school, 
a  maker  of  citizens  with  a  broader  outlook  into  the 

373 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

world  of  affairs,  a  powerful  engine  of  moral  force. 
Perhaps  its  greatest  direct  value  at  present  lies  in 
this  moral  force,  which  is  the  outgrowth  of  centu- 
ries of  sternly  moral  heritage,  and  runs  not  only 
through  philanthropic  channels,  but  through  all  the 
avenues  of  life. 

Of  scarcely  less  importance  are  the  impulse  and 
direction  the  club  has  given  to  the  administrative 
talents  of  women — talents  which  mark  their  special 
strength,  and  are  far  too  valuable  to  be  ignored  at 
a  time  when  all  the  wisdom  of  the  world  is  needed, 
in  private  as  well  as  in  public  affairs,  to  guide  it 
safely  through  its  threatening  storms. 


IV 


BUT  it  is  of  the  intellectual  and  social  value  of  the 
club  that  I  wish  more  especially  to  speak  here.  It 
is  often  asked  by  thoughtful  foreigners  why  Ameri- 
can women,  who  are  free  to  pursue  any  career  they 
like,  with  ample  privileges  of  education  and  the 
universal  reign  of  the  literary  club,  have  produced 
no  writers  of  the  first  order,  measured  even  by  the 
standards  of  their  own  sex.  One  finds  many  clever 
ones,  and  a  few  able  ones,  but  no  Jane  Austen,  no 
George  Eliot,  no  Mme.  de  Stael,  no  Mrs.  Brown- 
ing. This  may  be  partly  due  to  the  fact  that  we 
have  not  yet  passed  the  period  of  going  to  school. 
It  is  possible  that  another  generation,  reared  in  the 

374 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

stimulating  atmosphere  of  this,  may  give  us  some 
rare  flower  of  genius,  if  its  mental  force  be  not 
weakened  by  the  general  pouring-in  process,  or  dis- 
sipated in  the  modern  tendency  toward  limitless 
expansion  and  dilution.  But  club  life  in  itself  is 
not  directly  favorable  to  creative  genius.  The 
qualities  of  the  imagination  never  flourish  in  crowds, 
though  a  certain  order  of  talent  does  flourish  there 
— a  talent  that  brings  quicker  returns  and  more 
immediate  consideration,  at  far  less  cost.  The 
salon  made  brilliant  and  versatile  women  who  were 
noted  for  conversation  and  diplomacy;  it  made 
charming  women  who  ruled  men  and  affairs 
through  rare  gifts  of  administration,  tempered  with 
intelligent  sympathy  and  tact;  it  made  executive 
women,  and  finely  critical  women,  and  masterful 
women,  who  left  a  strong  and  lasting  impression 
upon  the  national  life  :  but,  though  they  lived  in  the 
main  intellectual  current  of  their  time,  stimulated 
and  inspired  its  leaders,  and  had  much  to  do  with 
its  direction,  they  seldom  made  a  serious  effort  in 
literature  themselves.  The  few  who  have  left  a 
name  in  letters  only  illustrate  the  fact  that  individ- 
ual genius  is  a  flower  of  another  growth.  Mme. 
de  Stae'l  would  have  been  a  great  woman  under  any 
conditions ;  but  we  owe  all  of  her  best  work  in  liter- 
ature to  her  exile  from  the  social  life  of  Paris,  where 
her  thoughts  had  no  time  to  crystallize.  The  gift 
of  Mme.  de  Sevigne  was  nearly  allied  to  a  conversa- 

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SALON    AND   WOMAN'S   CLUB 

tional  one,  but  her  mind  was  matured  and  deep- 
ened during  years  of  seclusion  under  the  lonely 
skies  of  Brittany.  Mme.  de  la  Fayette  left  the 
world  of  the  salons  early,  to  find  her  literary  inspi- 
ration in  the  solitude  of  ill  health  and  the  stimulat- 
ing friendship  of  La  Rochefoucauld.  Mme.  du 
Chatelet,  whose  talent  was  of  another  color,  wrote 
on  philosophy  and  translated  Newton,  not  in  the 
breezy  air  of  the  salons,  but  in  the  tranquil  shades 
of  Cirey  and  the  less  tranquil  society  of  Voltaire. 
There  were  other  women  who  wrote,  though  they 
usually  chose  to  hide  a  light  which  was  not  a  very 
brilliant  one,  and  to  shine  in  other  ways.  It  may 
be  that  it  was  the  salon  which  made  these  women 
possible,  as  it  created  an  intellectual  atmosphere  in 
which  thought  blossomed  into  intense  and  vivid 
life ;  but  its  direct  tendency  was  to  foster  in  women 
talents  of  a  quite  different  sort  from  creative  ones. 
It  developed  to  a  high  degree,  however,  the  fine 
discrimination  and  critical  sense  which  led  Rous- 
seau to  say  that  "  a  point  of  morals  would  not  be 
better  discussed  in  a  society  of  philosophers  than 
in  that  of  a  pretty  woman  of  Paris." 

The  clubs  have  hardly  lived  long  enough  to  jus- 
tify a  final  judgment  as  to  their  outcome ;  but  the 
best  writers  of  our  own  time  have  not  been,  as  a  rule, 
actively  identified  with  them,  though  a  few,  whose 
minds  were  already  formed  in  another  school,  have 
had  much  to  do  in  founding  and  leading  them. 

376 


SALON   AND   WOMAN'S    CLUB 

The  many  able  women  who  have  given  their  time 
and  talents  to  the  clubs  have  oftener  merged  their 
literary  gifts,  if  they  had  them,  into  work  of 
another  sort,  not  less  valuable  in  its  way,  but  less 
tangible  and  less  individual.  It  is  the  work  of  the 
general,  who  plans,  organizes,  sifts  values,  adapts 
means  to  definite  ends,  but  who  lives  too  much  in 
the  swift  current  of  affairs  to  give  heed  to  the  voice 
of  the  imagination,  or  to  master  the  art  of  literary 
form  which  alone  makes  for  thought  a  permanent 
abiding-place. 

But  if  the  clubs  do  not  produce  great  creative 
writers, — who,  after  all,  are  born,  not  made, — they 
furnish  a  multitude  of  ready  ones,  and  an  army  of 
readers  who  are  likely  to  have  a  dominant  voice  in 
the  taste  of  the  next  generation.  The  result  is  cer- 
tain to  be — indeed,  is  already — a  voluminous  litera- 
ture. The  quantity  of  a  thing,  however,  does  not 
insure  its  fine  quality ;  oftener  the  reverse.  Natu- 
rally, the  question  of  standards  becomes  one  of 
grave  importance,  unless  we  are  ready  to  accept 
the  rule  of  the  average,  which  more  than  offsets  the 
rise  of  (he  lowest  by  the  fall  of  the  highest,  with  an 
ultimate  tendency  downward.  We  grow  in  the 
direction  of  our  ideals,  and  these  are  measured  by 
the  height  of  our  standards.  That  many  of  the  clubs 
have  exalted  ideals,  and  are  doing  a  great  deal  of 
valuable  work,  is  not  a  matter  of  doubt.  It  is 
equally  certain  that  some  of  them  work  with  a  zeal 

377 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

that  is  not  according  to  knowledge,  through  lack  of 
capable  leaders,  and  through  a  fallacy,  nowhere  so 
fatal  as  in  art  and  letters,  that  the  wish  to  do  a 
thing  is  equivalent  to  a  talent  for  doing  it. 

There  is  no  doubt  that  American  women  read 
and  discuss  books  enough.  It  may  be  that  we  read 
too  many.  One  may  devour  books  as  one  does 
bonbons,  and  with  little  more  profit.  Nor  is  there 
any  doubt  that  we  write  papers  enough  and  hear 
talks  enough  on  every  imaginable  subject,  from 
the  antediluvians  to  Imperialism  and  the  Chinese 
question.  To  whatever  all  this  mental  activity  may 
lead,  it  does  not  always  lead  to  culture,  even  of  the 
mind,  and  I  take  the  word,  unqualified,  to  include 
much  more.  It  does  lead  to  a  broad  diffusion  of 
intelligence,  but  there  is  an  essential  difference  be- 
tween intelligence  and  culture.  Paradoxical  as  it 
may  seem,  it  is  quite  possible,  in  running  after  the 
one,  to  run  away  from  the  other.  The  woman  who 
belongs  to  ten  or  twelve  clubs  in  order  to  be  of  the 
new  age,  and  to  learn  enough  of  all  sorts  of  things 
to  be  able  to  talk  about  them,  may  find  her  social 
compensation  and  a  harmless  way  of  amusing  her- 
self, if  she  likes  that  sort  of  amusement ;  but  if  she 
aims  at  mental  culture,  that  is  another  affair.  It  is 
not  a  matter  of  facts  and  phrases  and  formulas  that 
one  goes  in  search  of,  but  an  inward  growth,  the 
result  of  long  and  loving  companionship  with  the 
best  thought  of  the  world,  which  is  not  at  all  the 

378 


SALON    AND   WOMAN'S   CLUB 

same  thing  as  a  flitting  acquaintance  with  a  multi- 
tude of  subjects,  or  the  ability  to  talk  glib  platitudes 
about  the  latest  fads  in  art  or  science  or  literature. 
Such  companionship  is  found  to  only  a  limited  ex- 
tent in  gatherings  of  any  sort;  but  stimulus  and 
inspiration  may  be  found  there,  and  here  lies  the 
true  intellectual  value  of  the  club.  To  thoughtful 
and  sincere  women,  who  have  a  certain  amount  of 
training  and  natural  gifts  of  assimilation,  with  small 
facilities  for  contact  with  the  thinking  world,  it  is 
a  priceless  boon.  But  to  narrow  and  untrained 
intellects  that  like  to  flit  from  one  thing  to  another, 
content  with  a  flying  glimpse  and  a  telling  point  or 
two  which  will  go  far  toward  making  them  seem 
wise  to  the  uninitiated,  there  are  large  possibilities 
in  the  way  of  what  we  may  call  imitation  culture. 
It  is  simply  another  outlet  for  the  ambition  of  the 
parvenu  who  puts  on  costly  clothes  and  rare  jew- 
els in  the  comfortable  assurance  that  "  fine  feathers 
make  fine  birds." 


IT  will,  I  think,  be  conceded  that  the  special  dis- 
tinction of  the  American  woman  does  not  lie  in  her 
intellect  or  her  learning.  Brilliant  gifts  and  attain- 
ments, to  a  certain  point,  may  indeed  be  exception- 
ally frequent;  but  they  have  often  been  equaled, 
if  not  exceeded,  in  the  past.  It  lies,  rather,  in  her 
facility  for  utilizing  knowledge  and  adapting  it  to 

379 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

visible  ends.  To  a  combination  of  many  talents 
has  been  added  one  to  make  them  all  available.  It 
is  essentially  a  talent  for  "  arriving,"  in  other  words, 
a  talent  for  success,  either  with  or  without  intellec- 
tual ability  of  a  high  order,  and  consists  largely  in 
a  keen  insight  as  to  serviceable  values,  with  a 
marked  aptness  for  catching  salient  points  and  using 
them  to  the  best  advantage.  It  is  a  variation  of  the 
same  talent  that  has  made  our  country  the  wonder 
of  the  century.  In  men  we  call  it  business  sagacity, 
but  it  may  find  an  outlet  in  many  other  channels 
besides  the  amassing  of  fortunes.  In  women  we 
call  it  cleverness,  and  its  shades  are  endless.  It 
makes  the  success  of  the  philanthropist,  the  leader, 
and  the  administrator  of  the  household,  as  well  as 
the  fortune  of  the  social  aspirant,  and  sometimes  of 
the  charlatan.  In  itself  it  has  no  ethical  quality. 
It  is  simply  an  instrument,  and  its  value  depends 
upon  the  end  for  which  it  is  used.  But  the  result 
of  it  is  that  no  women  in  the  world  have  so  much 
versatility,  or  make  a  little  knowledge  go  so  far. 

On  the  social  side  this  talent  is  invaluable,  and  it 
is  one  of  the  most  piquant  charms  of  the  American 
woman,  when  the  sharp  corners  of  provincialism 
are  rubbed  off.  On  the  intellectual  side,  however, 
though  it  gives  an  adaptable  quality  to  genuine 
scholarship,  it  drifts  easily  into  superficiality  and 
affectation.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  the  club 
is  responsible  for  the  fact  that  a  hundred  charla- 

380 


SALON    AND   WOMAN'S   CLUB 

tans  follow  in  the  wake  of  every  real  talent,  as  a 
hundred  Tartufes  in  the  wake  of  every  saint — 
when  saints  are  in  fashion ;  but  it  is  responsible 
when  it  takes  a  bit  of  colored  glass  for  a  gem.  It 
is  sure,  also,  to  suffer  from  the  pretension  of  those 
who  illy  represent  it.  The  salon,  which  made  things 
of  the  intellect  a  fashion,  received  its  worst  blow  in 
the  house  of  its  friends.  Madelon,  in  "  Les  Pre- 
cieuses  Ridicules,"  looked  upon  life  as  a  failure  if 
she  chanced  to  miss  the  last  romance,  or  portrait,  or 
madrigal,  or  sonnet ;  and  Cathos  declared  that  she 
should  die  of  shame  if  any  one  asked  her  about 
something  new  which  she  had  not  seen.  The  pen  of 
Moliere  sketched  the  crude  copy  of  a  fine  thing  in 
colors  too  vivid  to  be  mistaken,  and  henceforth  the 
copy  stood  for  the  thing.  The  world  had  its  undis- 
criminating  laugh  at  the  salons ;  good  taste  blushed 
at  the  company  in  which  it  found  itself;  and  the 
interests  of  intelligent  women  were  put  back  for  a 
generation.  It  was  not  the  first  time  that  a  good 
cause  has  suffered  from  its  too  zealous  followers, 
nor  is  it  likely  to  be  the  last.  The  world  moves  in 
circles,  even  if  there  be  a  spiral  tendency  upward, 
as  the  optimists  amiably  assure  us. 

Doubtless  we  fancy  ourselves  much  wiser  than 
those  seventeenth-century  precieuses  whose  imita- 
tors did  them  so  much  harm.  Certainly  we  put 
more  seriousness  into  our  pretensions.  But  we 
have  our  own  little  faults  and  affectations,  though 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

they  are  not  precisely  the  same.  We  do  not  devote 
ourselves  to  portraits,  or  sonnets,  or  madrigals.  We 
do  not  moralize  in  maxims,  good  or  bad,  nor  do  we 
pretend  to  be  sentimental ;  indeed,  we  pretend  not 
to  be,  if  we  are.  Sentiment  is  out  of  fashion.  The 
modern  Philaminte  may  look  with  chilling  pity 
upon  her  belated  sister  who  has  the  courage  to  like 
Tennyson  and  Mrs.  Browning,  when  she  ought  to 
prefer  Ibsen  and  the  symbolists;  but  she  is  not 
likely  to  faint  at  a  common  word,  or  dismiss  her 
cook  for  a  solecism.  Our  foibles  are  of  quite 
another  sort.  Instead  of  painting  little  pictures 
on  a  small  canvas,  we  take  a  very  large  canvas  and 
pad  our  pictures  to  fit  it.  We  do  not  map  out  the 
passions  on  a  carte  du  tendre,  or  give  our  valuable 
time  to  the  discussion  of  a  high-flown  Platonism 
which  cradles  a  woman  in  rose-leaves,  while  her 
lover  waits  for  her  a  dozen  years  or  so  because  it 
is  vulgar  to  marry  ;  but  we  map  out  the  fields  of  the 
intellect,  extending  from  protoplasm  to  the  fixed 
stars,  and  undertake  to  traverse  the  whole  as  confi- 
dently as  we  start  for  a  morning  walk.  If  we  can- 
not get  over  the  ground  fast  enough,  we  can  take 
an  electric  train  and  catch  flying  glimpses  sufficient 
to  give  us  a  pleasant  consciousness  of  being  intelli- 
gent and  quite  modern. 

Such  vast  aims  are,  no  doubt,  praiseworthy,  and 
reflect  great  credit  on  the  clubs  which  have  de- 
monstrated so  clearly  the  expansive  quality  of  the 

382 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S   CLUB 

feminine  mind ;  but  they  are  also  fatiguing,  and  sug- 
gest the  possibility  that  these  same  clubs  are  push- 
ing us  a  little  too  fast  and  too  far.  One  is  often 
forced  to  the  conclusion  that  we  should  do  more  if 
we  did  not  try  to  do  quite  so  much.  It  is  very  well 
to  follow  Emerson's  advice  to  "  hitch  your  wagon 
to  a  star  "  ;  but  he  never  proposed  hitching  it  to  all 
the  constellations  at  once.  When  I  hear  the  Greek 
poets,  the  Italian  painters,  the  English  novelists, 
and  the  German  masters  disposed  of  at  a  sympo- 
sium in  a  single  afternoon,  as  I  did  not  long  ago,  I 
wonder  if  the  rare  quality  of  mental  distinction 
which  made  the  glory  of  the  Immortals  will  exist  at 
all  in  the  future ;  whether  we  shall  not  build  tents 
for  our  thoughts  instead  of  temples;  whether,  in- 
deed, the  finest  flavor  of  thought  will  not  be  as 
hopelessly  lost  as  the  perfume  of  the  flowers  that 
are  scattered  in  indiscriminate  heaps  along  the 
highways  to  show  their  quantity. 

Nor  is  there  less  danger  in  attempting  too  large 
things  than  too  many  things.  It  is  certainly  cour- 
ageous for  a  woman  who  knows  little  of  history, 
less  of  philosophy,  and  nothing  at  all  about  the  art 
of  writing,  to  undertake  the  Herculean  task  of  pre- 
paring a  paper  on  "  The  Pagan  Philosophers  and 
their  Schools."  With  the  best  efforts,  she  will  have 
only  a  few  outlines  of  facts  and  second-hand  opin- 
ions, which  might  have  a  certain  value  if  either  she 
or  her  audience  proposed  to  fill  them  out.  But 

383 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S    CLUB 

this  is  precisely  what  the  modern  woman  who 
wishes  to  know  a  little  of  everything  has  no  time 
to  do,  even  if  she  have  the  inclination.  There  is  to 
be  a  similar  outline  of  Greek  literature  the  next 
week,  one  of  the  middle  ages  the  week  after,  and 
so  on  to  the  end  of  the  season,  when  she  has  a  fine 
collection  of  skeletons,  with  no  flesh  and  blood  on 
any  of  them,  if,  indeed,  the  skeletons  themselves 
have  not  vanished  into  thin  air.  The  Forty  Im- 
mortals would  shrink  with  dismay  from  the  mag- 
nitude of  such  a  scheme.  The  worst  of  it  is  that 
one  comes  to  have  a  false  sense  of  perspective,  and 
to  judge  works  of  the  intellect  by  their  size  in- 
stead of  their  quality — like  the  pretentious  but 
ignorant  woman  who  gravely  remarked,  after  hear- 
ing a  brilliant  talk  from  a  brilliant  man  on  Irish  wit, 
that  she  "  did  not  find  it  very  improving."  There 
is,  too,  the  natural  result  of  calling  things  by  the 
wrong  names,  and  mistaking  the  thinnest  of  veneer- 
ing for  culture. 

It  is  by  no  means  necessary,  or  even  desira- 
ble, that  every  woman  belonging  to  a  club  should 
be  a  savante ;  indeed,  considering  the  number 
of  the  clubs,  I  am  not  sure  that  this  would  not 
bring  about  a  more  deplorable  state  of  affairs  than 
if  there  were  none  at  all.  It  may  even  be  better 
for  the  average  woman  to  know  a  little  about  many 
things  than  all  about  one  thing,  if  she  has  a  certain 
discrimination  as  to  values,  and  the  fine  sense  of  pro- 

384 


SALON   AND   WOMAN'S    CLUB 

portion  which  is  the  result  of  more  or  less  mental 
training.  But  it  is  desirable  that  each  one  should 
have  at  least  a  little  knowledge  of  what  she  under- 
takes to  write  or  talk  about.  Why  a  woman  who 
might  have  something  to  say  concerning  certain 
phases  of  our  colonial  life  should  be  asked  to  write 
a  paper  on  Greek  art,  of  which  she  has  not  even 
read,  much  less  thought,  or  one  who  is  more  or  less 
familiar  with  various  pleasant  corners  of  English 
literature  should  be  called  upon  to  entertain  her 
hearers  on  the  Italian  Renaissance,  of  which  she 
knows  nothing  whatever,  is  one  of  the  mysteries  of 
the  new  era.  "  I  am  so  glad  to  see  you,"  said  one 
woman  to  a  friend  whom  she  met  on  the  street. 
"  I  have  a  paper  to  write  on  the  symbolists.  You 
know  all  about  such  things.  What  are  the  sym- 
bolists, anyway?"  We  are  told  that  when  the 
blind  lead  the  blind,  both  are  likely  to  come  to 
grief.  It  is  needless  to  say  that  these  faults  are 
not  universal,  as  there  is  a  great  deal  of  careful 
study  and  fine  thought  in  the  clubs,  but  they  are 
sufficiently  common  to  be  noted  among  things  to 
be  avoided.  / 

A  still  more  serious  danger  lies  in  the  endless 
multiplication  of  clubs,  which  offers  an  irresistible 
temptation  to  those  who  like  to  cull  a  little  here, 
and  a  little  there,  without  too  exacting  effort  in  any 
direction.  They  may  all  be  valuable  in  them- 
selves, but  because  it  is  good  to  belong  to  one  or 

25  385 


SALON   AND   WOMAN'S    CLUB 

two  active  clubs  of  different  aims,  it  does  not  fol- 
low that  it  is  good  to  belong  to  a  dozen;  and  I 
know  of  a  woman  who  claims  with  pride  that  she 
belongs  to  twenty-two !  "  Moderation  is  the  charm 
of  life,"  said  Jean  Paul,  and  one  sees  with  regret 
how  little  of  that  sort  of  charm  there  is  left;  in- 
deed, I  am  not  sure  that  it  has  not  ceased  to  be 
considered  a  charm.  We  may  find  a  note  of  warn- 
ing in  the  later  days  of  the  great  salons.  The  so- 
cial life  of  the  eighteenth  century  reads  like  a  page 
of  our  own,  with  its  whirl  of  conversazioni,  its  talks 
on  science,  its  experiments  in  chemistry,  physi- 
ology, psychology,  its  mania  for  discussing  litera- 
ture, art,  and  philosophy.  The  literary  salons  had 
blossomed  into  great  centers  of  intellectual  bril- 
liancy, of  which  all  this  life  was  the  natural  pen- 
dant. It  was  the  fashion  then,  as  now,  for  women 
to  concern  themselves  with  affairs  of  state ;  to  talk 
of  the  rights  of  man,  though  they  had  less  to  say 
than  we  have  about  the  rights  of  woman ;  to  dream 
of  a  social  millennium,  which  they  were  doomed  to 
wade  through  rivers  of  blood  without  reaching. 
They  too  invaded  the  secrets  of  the  laboratory, 
and  even  the  surgeon's  domain.  We  hear  of  a 
young  countess  who  carried  a  skeleton  in  her  trunk 
when  she  went  on  a  journey,  "  as  one  might  carry 
a  book  to  read,"  in  order  to  study  anatomy.  These 
women,  like  ourselves,  aimed  to  know  a  little  of 
everything.  They  too  were  fired  with  the  passion 

386 


SALON   AND   WOMAN'S    CLUB 

for  intelligence  and  the  passion  for  multitudes. 
With  the  craving  for  novelties  came  the  ever- 
growing need  of  a  stronger  spice  to  make  them 
palatable.  In  this  carnival  of  the  mind  they 
lost  their  faith  and  simplicity,  loved  with  their 
brains  instead  of  their  hearts,  forgot  their  natural 
duties,  and  found  natural  ties  irksome.  Longing 
for  rest  without  the  power  to  rest,  they  suffered 
from  maladies  of  the  nerves,  and  were  de- 
voured with  the  ennui  of  exhaustion.  Life  lost  its 
equilibrium,  and  the  result  was  inevitable.  The 
reaction  from  the  restlessness  of  an  intellect  that  is 
not  fed  from  inner  sources,  but  finds  its  stimulus 
and  theater  alike  in  the  world,  was  toward  an  ex- 
aggeration of  the  sensibilities.  "  If  I  could  become 
calm,  I  should  believe  myself  on  a  wheel,"  said  one 
whose  brilliancy  had  dazzled  a  generation.  This 
fatal  "  too  much  "  was  not  the  least  of  the  causes 
that  lost  to  women  the  empire  they  had  won.  All 
movements  are  measured,  in  the  end,  by  a  standard 
of  common  sense,  and  reactions  are  in  proportion  to 
the  deviation  from  a  just  mean.  The  revolution 
which  brought  liberty  to  men,  or  at  least  shifted 
the  burdens  to  some  one  else,  deprived  women  of 
what  they  had.  They  were  forbidden  to  organize, 
and  sent  back  to  the  fireside  and  cradles.  The  re- 
public swept  away  from  them  the  last  vestige  of 
political  power,  and  gave  them  nothing  in  the  place 
of  their  lost  social  kingdom.  They  were  forced  to 

387 


SALON    AND    WOMAN'S   CLUB 

speak  with  hushed  voices  in  hidden  coteries.  Of 
these  there  were  always  a  few,  but  their  prestige 
was  gone.  "  There  is  one  thing  which  is  not 
French,"  said  Napoleon;  "  it  is  that  a  woman  can 
do  as  she  pleases."  And  he  proceeded  straightway 
to  give  point  to  his  theory  by  exiling  the  ablest 
woman  in  France  and  silencing  all  the  rest. 

We  are  apt  to  take  high  moral  ground  on  the 
frivolity  of  these  women,  and  to  pride  ourselves  on 
our  superiority  because  we  have  such  a  serious  way 
of  amusing  ourselves — so  serious,  indeed,  that  we 
forget  there  can  be  anything  so  questionable  as  fri- 
volity about  it.  To  be  sure,  the  clubs  are  free  from 
many  of  the  faults  of  the  salons.  They  do  not  put 
social  conventions  in  the  place  of  principles,  nor 
substitute  an  esthetic  conscience  for  an  ethical  one ; 
nor  do  they  drift  at  all  in  the  direction  of  moral 
laxity.  A  movement  of  the  intellect,  too,  which 
has  its  roots  in  the  character  is  more  likely  to  last 
than  one  that  hangs  on  the  suffrage  of  those  it  was 
meant  to  please  and  glorify.  But  we  have  the  same 
mental  unrest,  the  same  thirst  for  excitement,  the 
same  feverish  activity,  the  same  indisposition  to 
stay  at  home  with  our  thoughts.  A  fever  of  the  in- 
tellect may  be  preferable  to  a  fever  of  the  senses, 
and  less  harmful  as  an  epidemic,  but  it  tends 
equally  toward  exhaustion  and  disintegration.  It  is 
not  so  much  a  question  of  morals  as  a  question  of 
balance.  The  modern  fashion,  however,  of  doing 

388 


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everything,  even  to  thinking,  in  masses,  is  not  alto- 
gether due  to  a  fever  of  the  intellect,  any  more  than 
it  was  a  hundred  years  ago.  Much  of  it  is  doubt- 
less due  to  a  genuine  love  of  knowledge,  much  of  it 
to  a  haunting  desire  to  be  doing  something  in  the 
outside  world,  though  the  thing  done  be  possibly 
not  at  all  worth  the  doing ;  but  a  great  deal  of  it  is 
due  to  a  sort  of  hyperaesthesia  of  the  social  senti- 
ment, or  the  mental  restlessness  that  betrays  a  lack 
of  poise  and  depth  in  the  character.  We  call  it  the 
spirit  of  the  age — the  innocent  phantom  which  has 
to  bear  the  burden  of  most  of  our  sins,  and  is  gath- 
ering so  resistless  a  force  that  the  strongest  and 
wisest  are  swept  along,  despite  themselves,  in  its  ac- 
celerating course.  But  the  spirit  of  the  age  is  only 
the  sum  of  individual  forces.  It  needs  only  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  wise  counter-forces  to  temper  and 
modify  it. 

VI 

A  WORD  as  to  another  phase  of  the  club.  We 
have  seen  that  the  salons  broke  through  the  exclu- 
sive lines  of  rank,  and  created  a  society  based 
largely  upon  standards  of  the  intellect,  with  a  meet- 
ing-point of  good  manners.  The  woman's  club  has 
done  a  similar  work  toward  preventing  the  crystal- 
lization of  American  society  on  the  basis  of  wealth. 
Its  standards  are  professedly  of  the  mind,  though 
they  are  flexible  enough  to  include  a  wide  range  of 

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SALON    AND   WOMAN'S   CLUB 

ability,  aspiration,  and  small  distinctions  of  various 
sorts.  It  would  be  too  much  to  say  that  these  ele- 
ments are  fused  into  anything  like  a  homogeneous 
society  ;  but  they  have  a  recognized  point  of  contact 
that  sufHces  for  literary  or  charitable  aims,  though 
not  altogether  for  social  ones,  which  demand  the 
larger  contact  of  personal  sympathies,  and  a  certain 
community  of  language  that  comes  within  the  prov- 
ince of  manners.  The  salons,  however,  were  wise 
enough  to  establish  and  maintain  the  social  equi- 
librium between  men  and  women,  while  the  clubs 
seem  to  be  rapidly  destroying  it.  Outside  of  a 
limited  dinner-giving,  amusement-loving  circle,  it 
is  undeniable  that  our  social  life  is  centering  largely 
in  clubs  composed  exclusively  of  women,  whose 
tastes  are  diverging  more  and  more  from  those  of 
men,  and  in  the  functions  growing  out  of  them.  To 
these  we  may  add  a  few  receptions  with  a  sprin- 
kling of  men,  and  an  endless  procession  of  teas  and 
luncheons  with  no  men  at  all.  Private  entertaining 
of  a  general  character,  with  its  varying  flavor  of 
individuality,  seems  likely,  with  many  other  pleas- 
ant things,  to  become  a  memory.  If  these  clubs 
grew  out  of  a  state  of  affairs  in  which  women  were 
virtually  excluded  from  the  intellectual  life  of  men, 
we  are  fast  drifting  toward  the  reverse  condition, 
in  which  men  will  have  no  part  in  the  intellectual 
and  very  little  in  the  social  life  of  women. 

Whether  this  marked  separation  of  interests  be- 

390 


SALON   AND   WOMAN'S    CLUB 

yond  a  reasonable  point  be  for  the  good  of  either 
men  or  women,  is  a  matter  of  grave  doubt.  It  is 
certain  that  women  who  are  brought  into  frequent 
contact  with  the  minds  of  men  think  more  clearly 
and  definitely,  look  at  things  in  a  larger  way, 
and  do  a  finer  quality  of  intellectual  work,  than 
those  who  have  been  limited  mainly  to  the  com- 
panionship of  their  own  sex.  Societies  of  women 
are  apt  to  fail  in  breadth  through  too  much  atten- 
tion to  technicalities  out  of  season,  to  sacrifice  the 
greater  good  to  personal  prejudices,  to  emphasize  a 
little  brief  authority,  to  grow  hard  rather  than 
strong,  to  become  carping  and  critical  without  the 
clearness  of  vision  that  gives  a  rational  basis  for 
criticism.  Nor  does  the  fact  that  a  great  many 
women  are  superior  to  these  limitations,  and  that 
men  are  not  invariably  free  from  them,  affect  the 
general  drift  of  things.  On  the  other  side,  it  is 
equally  true  that  men  have  done  the  greatest  work 
under  the  influence  of  able  women,  from  the  days 
of  Pericles  and  the  great  Greeks  who  found  a  fresh 
inspiration  in  the  salon  of  Aspasia,  to  the  brilliant 
men  of  modern  times,  too  numerous  to  cite  here, 
who  have  not  failed  to  acknowledge  their  debt  to 
feminine  judgment  and  criticism.  Men,  too,  are 
naturally  averse  to  the  trammels  of  form,  and,  left 
to  themselves,  rapidly  lose  the  refinement  and 
courtesy  that  came  in  with  the  social  reign  of 
women.  While  the  best  of  each  is  drawn  out 

391 


SALON    AND   WOMAN'S    CLUB 

through  social  contact  on  the  plane  of  the  intellect, 
the  worst  is  accented  by  separation. 

Then,  aside  from  the  fact  that  a  large  part  of  the 
happiness  of  the  world  depends  upon  a  certain 
degree  of  harmony  in  the  tastes  of  men  and  women, 
which  is  not  likely  to  exist  if  they  have  utterly 
divergent  points  of  social  interest,  men  are  an  in- 
contestable factor  in  all  our  plans  for  bettering  mat- 
ters, themselves  included.  We  cannot  fairly  claim 
to  constitute  more  than  half  of  the  human  family, 
and,  if  we  do  not  make  some  social  compromise,  we 
may  share  the  fate  of  the  Princess  Ida,  and  see  all 
of  our  fine  schemes  melt  away  like  the  fabric  of  a 
dream.  We  are  not  yet  ready  to  establish  an  or- 
der of  intellectual  vestals,  though  drifting  in  that 
direction;  and,  since  the  women's  clubs  do  really 
constitute  a  distinct  social  life,  why  not  make  them 
more  effective  on  that  side?  Why  leave  all  these 
possibilities  of  power  in  the  hands  of  those  who 
make  a  business  of  amusing  themselves?  It  is  a 
fashion  to  rail  at  society  as  frivolous ;  but  it  is  pre- 
cisely what  we  make  it,  and  it  is  ruled  by  women. 
If  it  tends  to  grow  vapid,  and  luxurious,  and  com- 
mercial, and  artificial,  we  have  only  to  plan  some- 
thing as  attractive  on  a  finer  and  more  natural 
basis.  And  where  do  we  find  a  better  starting- 
point  than  in  connection  with  the  women's  clubs  ? 
To  be  sure,  men  do  not,  as  a  rule,  find  them  inter- 
esting; indeed,  they  vote  them  a  trifle  dull,  but 

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SALON    AND   WOMAN'S   CLUB 

that  may  be  because  they  have  no  vital  part  in 
them.  Then,  the  fault  may  lie  a  little  in  the 
women  themselves.  There  is  clearly  a  flaw  some- 
where in  our  methods  or  our  ideals.  In  trying  to 
avoid  the  frivolities  of  society,  we  may  fall  into 
the  equally  fatal  error  of  failing  to  make  better 
things  attractive,  and  so  permit  the  busy  men  of 
to-day  to  slip  away  altogether  from  the  influence 
of  what  many  are  pleased  to  call  our  finer  moral  and 
esthetic  sense — to  say  nothing  of  what  we  lose  our- 
selves. It  may  be  deplorable,  but  it  is  still  a  fact, 
that  truth  is  doubly  captivating  when  served  with 
the  piquant  sauces  that  make  even  error  dangerously 
fascinating.  We  have  to  deal  with  people  as  they 
are,  not  as  we  think  they  ought  to  be. 

I  am  not  disposed  to  quote  the  Frenchwomen  of 
a  century  or  so  ago  as  models.  But  there  are 
many  points  we  might  take  from  them  in  the  art 
of  making  a  social  life  on  intellectual  lines  agree- 
able, as  well  as  a  vital  force.  When  women  who 
are  neither  young  nor  beautiful  dominate  an  age  of 
brilliant  men  through  intellect  and  tact,  it  does  no 
harm  to  study  their  methods  a  little  in  an  age  when 
women  of  equal  talent,  superior  education,  and  finer 
moral  aims  succeed  to  only  a  limited  extent  in  do- 
ing more  than  stimulate  one  another — a  good  thing 
to  do,  but  not  final.  Those  women,  too,  had  old 
distinctions  to  reconcile,  and  a  powerful  court  fora 
rival.  They  had  one  advantage,  as  they  made  a 

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SALON    AND   WOMAN'S    CLUB 

cult  of  esprit,  which  is  a  gift  of  their  race,  while  we 
make  a  cult  of  knowledge,  which  may  be  more  sub- 
stantial, but  is  less  luminous,  and  not  so  available 
socially.  Besides,  knowledge  is  a  thing  to  be  ac- 
quired and  not  caviar  to  mediocrity,  which  is  apt 
to  use  it  crudely,  and  with  pretension.  "  Let  your 
studies  flow  into  your  manners,  and  your  readings 
show  themselves  in  your  virtues,"  said  Mme.  de 
Lambert.  I  am  sorry  to  say  that  the  typical 
Frenchwoman  of  a  hundred  years  ago  did  not 
always  take  so  exalted  a  view  of  her  duties ;  but 
even  as  a  matter  of  taste  she  had  too  delicate  a 
sense  of  proportion  to  merge  the  woman  in  the 
intellect.  She  scattered  about  her  the  flavor  of 
knowledge  rather  than  the  knowledge  itself ;  which 
is  not  so  easy,  as  one  does  not  have  the  real  flavor 
of  knowledge  without  the  essence  of  it,  and  some- 
thing more.  Rare  natural  gifts  have  a  distinction  of 
their  own,  but  in  ordinary  life  what  one  is  counts 
for  more  than  what  one  knows,  and  the  secret  of 
attraction  lies  rather  in  the  sum  of  the  qualities 
which  we  call  character  than  in  the  acquirements.  A 
woman  may  be  familiar  with  Sanskrit,  and  calculate 
the  distance  of  the  fixed  stars,  without  being  inter- 
esting, or  even  admirable,  as  a  woman.  The  main 
point  is  to  preserve  one's  symmetry,  and  one's  cen- 
ter of  gravity;  then,  the  more  knowledge  the  bet- 
ter. It  may  be  that  the  flaw  in  our  ideals  lies  just 
here,  and  that  in  the  too  exclusive  pursuit  of  certain 

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SALON    AND   WOMAN'S    CLUB 

things  fine  in  themselves,  we  neglect  other  things 
equally  if  not  more  vital. 

No  doubt  the  Frenchwoman  did  much  that 
she  ought  not  to  have  done,  and  left  undone 
much  that  she  ought  to  have  done,  just  as  we 
do,  though  the  things  were  not  precisely  the  same  ; 
we  know,  too,  that  the  time  came  when  she 
did  lose  her  poise,  and  with  it  her  power.  But, 
with  all  her  faults,  in  the  days  of  her  glory  she 
never  forgot  her  point  of  view.  She  was  rarely 
aggressive,  and,  without  being  too  conscious  of  her- 
self or  her  aims,  it  was  a  part  of  her  esthetic  creed 
to  call  out  the  best  in  others.  With  consummate 
tact,  she  crowned  her  serious  gifts  with  the  gracious 
ways  and  gentle  amenities  that  disarmed  antago- 
nism and  diffused  everywhere  a  breath  of  sweet- 
ness. She  carried  with  her,  too,  the  sunshine  that 
springs  from  an  inexhaustible  gaiety  of  heart,  and 
this  was  one  source  of  her  unfailing  charm.  Per- 
haps it  was  partly  why  the  literary  salon  retained 
its  prestige  for  nearly  two  hundred  years,  and,  in 
spite  of  its  errors,  was  brilliant  and  amusing,  as 
well  as  an  intellectual  force,  to  the  end. 

It  is  far  from  my  intention  to  repeat  the  old  cry 
that  other  days  were  better  days,  and  other  ways 
better  ways,  than  ours.  We  have  a  life  of  our  own, 
and  do  not  wish  to  copy  one  that  is  dead,  or  to  put 
on  manners  that  do  not  fit  us.  But  the  essentials 
of  human  nature  are  eternally  the  same,  and  in 

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bringing  new  forces  to  bear  upon  it  we  may  do  well 
sometimes  to  consult  the  wisdom  of  the  past,  to 
ponder  the  secret  of  its  failures  as  of  its  successes. 
It  is  not  a  matter  of  depreciating  our  aims  or  our 
ways,  but  of  getting  the  most  out  of  them,  perhaps 
through  some  subtle  touch  that  we  have  missed ; 
also  of  preserving  our  sanity  and  equilibrium  in  this 
new  order  of  things,  which  tends  always  to  grow 
more  complex  and  more  bewildering. 


396 


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